Crash
by CardioQueen
Summary: Cristina is severely injured in car wreck that nearly takes her life.
1. Chapter 1

_The future. Our lives weigh so heavily upon it. Every day we wake up. We get dressed. We go to work. To school. To church. We do it everyday because somewhere along the line we have something to look forward to; our vacations, our weddings, the birth of our children. We invest everything in our future, never stopping to live moment for moment until life is cruel enough to deal us a hand that demands that we take pause, forget the future, and focus on the now. _

Burke pressed his lips to Cristina's, his heart rate increasing, his airway constricted. A mixture of blood, sweat and tears dripped from his face to hers as he forced air into her lungs, "Come on, Cristina...the ambulance will be here soon..", he pleaded with her limp form, pumping her chest harder.

Rain dropped from the sky, an onslaught of anger from the heavens.

The other car came out of nowhere and blindsided her side of the car.

They were talking about getting married, about what their future could be like, and the car came out of nowhere and ended it.

"No!" he cursed to himself, giving her more of his own air, trying to keep her body alive.

She was mangled and twisted on the pavement when the paramedics arrived, "Sir...we can take over." the young woman tried to take over compressions.

He looked up for only a second to recognize the paramedic Hannah, and he began to panic. "You're still new...you can't do this."

"Dr. Burke..." The young girl was slightly taken aback, but said no more.

He continued to do compressions while the EMT began to bag Cristina's limp form.

"She need's to be intubated. You need a 7.5..."

Hannah looked to him and nodded, pulling an intubation kit from her bag, "Move, Dennis!" she snapped as they pulled a carefully coreographed move.

She moved Cristina's jaw forward with a sickening crack to open her airway, "Hyperventilate her..."

The respirations sped up and Burke was satisfied as he saw the rise and fall of her chest, continuing the compressions.

He could feel her ribs giving way under him, and he tried to push it out of his mind, he was saving her.

He had to save her.

They had a future.

Hannah slid the laryngoscope into place, "I need cricoid pressure, I can't see anything...portable suction..."

The EMT laid his hand over her neck to make it easier for the vocal cords to be seen while simultaneously handing the suction to the young brunette.

"I see cords..." she muttered to herself, inserting the tube into her airway. "Bag her!"

The EMT continued to bag her, and Hannah slid a strip into the bag-valve mask. "Good color change...get the boards."

Dennis ran back to the rig to grab the boards and Hannah placed a stethoscope over Cristina's chest, "Bag her for a minute." she told Burke.

He stopped his compressions and took over the bag, "Do you hear anything?? Anything?"

He looked down, his Cristina ashen and bloody, and his heart ached.

"She's got a heartbeat...we gotta get her to the hospital before we lose it again."

Burke fell backwards on the wet pavement looking to the sky as the rain washed the blood from his face. His own heart was racing as was his mind.

The EMT hooked her to a monitor and Burke watched her rhythm.

It was bradycardic, but there were no arrhythmias, and that was a good sign.

For now.

He leaned forward to help slide the long board under her and watched as they strapped her the board.

She was like a rag doll.

The fighter in her was gone.

He clutched his head in frustration, he had to quit thinking like this.

She wasn't gone.

She hadn't even started to fight yet.

"We have to start fluids on her before we leave, Dr. Burke." Hannah called to him through the rain. "She's going to go into shock if we don't!"

He nodded his head, "Do it. Just be quick! We need to get her to Seattle Grace now..."

They were talking about the future.

And then that damn car.

He paused.

The other driver...where was the other driver.

He was quickly on his feet and walked to the other car that had become meshed with Cristina's side of his car, "You almost killed her...you could've killed her!" he was balling his fists in anger.

He was no longer a doctor, but a boyfriend who nearly lost his girlfriend.

As he rounded to the driver side of the car to see the driver behind the wheel his fists became unclenched and his heart sank deep into his stomach.

Meredith Grey was behind the wheel.

A/N: Thought of it at work today. It's not going to be updated as quickly as Hanukkah was, but hey...you guys will live, right?


	2. Chapter 2

Miranda Bailey stood outside of the ER of Seattle Grace hospital with George O'Malley. "I don't know what kind of fools go driving on a day like this. It's raining like cats and dogs, damn fools were just begging to get in a wreck." she muttered, pulling her gloves on.

"Yeah..." George muttered. He had a feeling sinking in his stomach that this trauma was different for some reason.

"What's wrong with you, O'Malley, cat got your tongue? Yang isn't here, Grey isn't here, you finally have your chance to get a piece of the action and you're moping."

"I'm fine, Dr. Bailey." he nodded curtly.

He was lying.

The ambulance flew into the ER parking lot, backing up as the doors to the rig flew open.

Burke jumped out of the back, helping the EMT to unload the stretcher. "Can't you move faster?" he insulted the EMT, his heart aching to get her stabilized, to know that everything was going to be okay.

The blood ran cold through Miranda Bailey's veins and everything seemed to move in slow motion as Cristina Yang was wheeled in front of her, a shadow of the woman she was just 12 hours ago.

"Dr. Burke, what happened??" George questioned, frantically snatching the chart from the EMT.

"Read it George!" Bailey snapped, moving the stretcher faster into Trauma 1.

"Cristina Yang, victim of a T-Bone car crash, multiple lacerations, contusions and abrasions. Intubated with a 7.5, cardiac arrest in the field, successfully revived with chest compressions. 18 gauge IV placed, massive blood loss."

"She had crepitus in her jaw, and I know some of her ribs are broken." Burke continued, "From compressions." his voice lowered.

He had broke her.

Bailey hooked her up to the Trauma monitors and George took over bagging for the EMT, "We need to get her hooked up to a Servo ASAP, O'Malley. Set it at 12 with a tidal volume of 10 and a PEEP of 5...move it O'Malley!"

"Lily, take over this bag..." George stuttered nervously, stepping aside for the young blonde nurse to take over bagging her.

He programmed the ventilator to the settings prescribed by Bailey and hooked the tubing up to her ETT. "She's on."

"She needs a trauma panel, head to toe portable films and a CT to rule out head injury." Burke started rattling off orders.

"Excuse me?" Bailey asked her back turned to him as she listened to Cristina's lung sounds.

"You heard me." he snapped.

"You are not on duty, and you are not my boss right now." she snapped back, hands on her waist as she turned to face him. "You are her scared boyfriend, so sit down, shut up and stay out of the way or I'll make you sit in the waiting room."

He backed away, anger pulsating through his veins.

"O'Malley?" Bailey barked. "We need a trauma panel, head to toe portables and a CT. Stat. That means now. Not five minutes from now, not 30 seconds from now, but now, in this moment."

The nurse placed a tourniquet on Cristina's arm to draw the trauma panels and Burke fell back into a tiny plastic chair in the corner of the room.

"We were just talking, and she came out of nowhere..." he muttered. looking down at his hands.

"Who's she?" Bailey asked, watching as the X-Ray technician ran into the room to take films.

"Grey..." he was barely audible.

"Grey, what does she have to do with this?" she questioned, slightly taken aback.

"Dr. Bailey..." George's voice had alarm. "She's decompensating..." He placed his stethoscope over her chest looking up at the monitor. "Heart rate is 34, no breath sounds on the left..."

Bailey slid out an IV catheter and jammed it in the space between the 3rd and 4th intercostals. A satisfying swish of air came out, but blood followed. "Shit, a hemopneumothorax...I need a chest tray stat. We gotta get this blood out of her chest."

"I'll do it, get out of my way." Burke stood to intervene.

"Scared boyfriend, sit down!" Bailey barked, emptying a bottle of iodine on Cristina's porcelain skin.

"I can do this."

"No, you can't. Sit down." she placed a small incision with a 10 blade to Cristina's side and slid the chest tube into place, copious amounts of blood flowing into the tube.

"Heart rate is coming back up." George sighed, his heart felt like it was going to give out.

"We need to get her to CT now." Bailey snapped, unlocking the gurney.

"Let me go with you." Burke argued, once again out of his seat.

"George, get her up there, I'll be there in just a minute." Bailey sighed.

She turned to Burke and for the first time truly saw him. "Preston Xavier Burke, there are glass shards hanging out of your arm and you've got a laceration the size of Texas on your forehead. The only place you're going is to get sutured and cleaned up."

He looked down and for the first time he'd realized that he indeed was injured, but it didn't matter.

She mattered.

"I'm fine Miranda...I want to be with her."

"You aren't going to be any good to her if you go septic from God only knows what's growin' on that glass in your arm, get it together. She's going to be fine." she snapped, pulling him into a curtained room.

"It was Grey..."

"What about Grey?"

Before he could speak, the EMTs rolled in with a second stretcher, "Patient's name is Meredith Grey." was all Bailey heard and she was following the stretcher. "Lily, get Burke cleaned up and get Sloane down here to do his sutures now!"

"What've we got?" she called after the EMT.

"Dr. Bailey...what are you doing here?" Meredith called after her, wildly moving her arms from the board which she was strapped down to.

"Meredith Grey, driver in T-Bone collision. No major injuries noted, was slightly combative in the field. She has a laceration to her forehead and some airbag abrasions. Denies any pain. Vital signs are stable, lungs are clear, good normal sinus rhythm...and..."

"And what?", Bailey knew before she heard it.

"We think she's drunk." the EMT finished.

A/N: I know I said slow, but my mind started racing once I started thinking of the implications! The twists and turns are fun. If I didn't need sleep I could seriously finish this in one night. Go figure, taking what I've learned in school and applying it to my writing. Hm. Concept. Found it. Love it. :)


	3. Chapter 3

Tension pulsated through Burke with each passing heartbeat as Sloane repaired the laceration to his forehead.

"You could have some lidocaine, Dr. Burke." Sloane sighed, continuing with his work.

"I do not need it." was all he could get out.

He looked over to Meredith, surrounded by nurses trying to get her under control and bit his lip.

"Something on your mind?"

"Do not make small talk with me. Not now." he uttered low through a clenched jaw.

Sloane placed a bandage over his forehead and nodded. For the first time since coming to Seattle Grace Hospital, he was without some sort of witty comeback.

He studied Burke while simultaneously checking the sutures on his right arm. He was truly scared. His body was tense, his eyes were sad, his jaw clenched. For the love of God, he had just gotten 16 sutures to his forehead unmedicated.

This man feared for the life of his girlfriend more than anything else.

"She's in CT. I'll cover for you." he finally mumbled, leaning into his ear so not to alert Bailey.

"Thank you." he mumbled and was gone in a flash.

Bailey spun on her heels to catch Burke's back and aimed her anger straight at Sloane, "What the hell do you think you're doing, Dr. Sloane. He is a patient in this hospital."

"He is worried about her and it was going to take a whole lot me and your short little self to stop him from getting to her."

She crossed her arms over her chest, "The next time you undermine my judgement, the next time that you decide to call me short..."

"What, Dr. Bailey? Are you going to tell one of your attendings on me?" he threatened and turned to leave the ER.

"You arrogant fool." she muttered, turning her attention back to Meredith.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Burke stepped into the reading room of the CT scanner, his heart heavy with fear.

He could look at those films and know in an instant what was wrong with her, the long term prognosis, and the chances that she'd even survive a surgery.

"O'Malley." he spoke low, averting his eyes from the film.

"Dr. Burke, you shouldn't be here." he reminded him softly.

"What do the films show?" his voice was shaky. Not the steady, strong, commanding voice that he normally used.

"She has a small subdural hematoma pressing against her pons, which is probably why she went into cardiac arrest...but that can be fixed easily."

Burke nodded, "Did you page Shepard."

"He's prepping the OR right now." O'Malley responded. "I paged Hahn as well."

His heart sunk. It couldn't be just one thing. "What's wrong with her heart?"

George hesitated, "She just needs..."

"Out with it O'Malley."

"Her Xiphoid process...from the compressions..."

"I injured the pericardial sac." he sighed, turning to face the wall, his heart aching.

He broke her heart.

"But it's fine...there isn't a lot of damage, and Dr. Hahn can fix it." George tried to reassure him.

"Is there anything else?" still facing the wall.

"Just some broken ribs and contusions. Nothing else too major...she'll pull through this, Dr. Burke. It's Cristina. She's a fighter, y'know..."

"Get her to the OR...and make sure that the gallery is closed. I don't need a bunch of interns looking at her." his eyes stung at the very thought of her body being desecrated by a bunch of students.

She was his Cristina.

George nodded, knowing better than to take offense, he wasn't talking to Dr. Burke, he wasn't talking to his friend.

He was talking to Cristina's boyfriend.

"I'll let you know what's going on all the way through, okay Dr. Burke?" his voice was nervous.

Burke knew they were simple procedures, that they were all procedures that Shepard and Hahn could handle...

But he couldn't just sit by in a waiting room and sip at a cup of coffee when he knew she was in the OR being exposed, cut open.

When he knew they were going to crack her ribs to fix her broken heart.

"You won't have to." he muttered.

He had made up his mind.

They might not let him in the OR, but they couldn't keep him out of the scrub room.

He would be by her side through all of it.

A/N: Hope you're liking it:)


	4. Chapter 4

"Her alcohol level is 1.6...that's twice the legal limit." Karev rattled off in front of the ER staff as if he was making an announcement.

"Karev!" Bailey snapped, grabbing the lab forms from him. "Confidentiality is the first thing we have to remember..." she looked at Meredith who had slumped back on the bed.

"Confidentiality is important Alex." Meredith reminded him, "So can we keep it confidential that I wrecked my car because I had too much to drink because Derek left me for his pregnant wife...again."

"Karev, go get me some Trexan and another banana bag. Now." There was threat of bodily injury in her tone.

Karev shook his head, "Whatever." and he was gone.

Bailey leaned into Meredith, pushing some hair back from her face. "There are more important things going on right now besides your love life."

Meredith looked to Bailey, her eyes wounded, "What? What is more important than my heart being broken by this man for the second time?" she paused for a moment, and the emotion in her eyes changed from that of anger to confusion and fear, "Wait...what am I doing here?"

Bailey shook her head, "Gr-Meredith...for some reason or another, you chose to drive after you drank, and you got in a wreck."

"A wreck...I know, but I'm okay, right...I'm good? Why do I need to be here?" she asked, patting her body with her hands.

"You're fine. Just some bruises. But the passenger in the other car isn't." Bailey explained. She was a different Bailey in this moment.

She was the mom now.

Meredith looked at Bailey, her face sullen, "I hit somebody else." it was a statement of realization.

"I know Cristina was the competition and all, Grey...but when they say you have to take out you competition they sure as hell don't mean for you to do it like that." Karev muttered at her, dropping the meds that Bailey had requested on her bed. "She has to have brain surgery and heart surgery. You really fucked her up."

Meredith's eyes widened and tears began to form, "Cristina...what about Cristina?" she looked to Bailey, her small hands clutching the side of the stretcher, as if she were trying to brace herself for an unseen impact.

Bailey jerked her finger away from the bed and Karev sighed, "I was just telling her the truth."

"Out. Now." Bailey snapped. "Go do charts."

"Whatever." he was gone again.

"Dr. Bailey...what about Cristina? What was he talking about?" Meredith's voice was cracking.

"Cristina and Burke were in the other car, Meredith." was all Bailey could say. She wanted so badly to tell her that it wasn't her fault, that it would be okay.

But she couldn't sugarcoat it. She couldn't tell her those things.

Because she chose to drink, then she chose to drive.

"She has to have surgery? They have to open her head and her chest?" she questioned, her voice shaky. "What about Burke?"

"Burke is fine, Meredith. A little scratched up, and emotionally damaged at the moment, but he's fine."

"Derek broke up with me at the bar, and I couldn't call anyone...George was on call, and Izzie is out of town, and Burke and Cristina...they were on a date. And Karev...well, you see Karev. And I couldn't leave my car..." she began to cry, "I didn't mean to hurt anyone, and I've done it before..."

Bailey grabbed her hand, "Cristina is going into surgery now and Shepard and Hahn are going to take good care of her."

Meredith looked up, "I have to talk to the police don't I? I could lose my license over this."

Bailey nodded, "They're waiting in the conference room to talk to you, but I told them they had to wait until I got you stabilized...until you're ready."

Meredith sat up in the bed, pulling her gown straight, "I'm ready to talk to them now."

She was trying to be responsible for what she had done.

"No, you're not. You're still incredibly drunk, regardless of how you feel." she pushed her back down in the bed. "Lay still until I tell you to move."

Meredith looked up to Bailey, her face still streaked with tears, "Is she going to die?"

"I don't know the extent of her injuries right now, Meredith, so I don't know, and I'm not going to leave you long enough to find out." Bailey shook her head, her voice low.

"You don't have to sit here with me..." her voice trailed off. "I don't deserve for you to sit with me."

"You made a mistake. You chose to drive. That was your mistake. You hit Burke and Cristina. She's hurt. It's still your mistake. That doesn't mean that you're not sorry for it, and it doesn't mean that you don't have emotional needs anymore. You made a mistake." she took a seat next to Meredith, "I can't condone that, and I can't tell you it's going to be okay. The only people that can tell you that it will be okay are Burke and Cristina. They're the only two that can forgive you."

Meredith closed her eyes, more tears sliding down her face, "She's my sister, Dr. Bailey. I almost killed my sister."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Burke watched from across the hall as the last of the surgeons and assistants disappeared into the OR and stepped into the scrub room.

He watched as they meticulously pulled the gown from her body leaving her naked and exposed for the entire room to see while they prepared to drape her.

He wanted to cover her up, to wrap her in his arms and protect her. Nobody should see her like this.

Tears stung at his eyes as Shepard walked into the room to scrub in, "Do not look at her."

Derek nodded, looking up to Burke as he plunged his arms under the spray of the sink. "She's going to be okay, Preston."

"I broke her heart. I literally broke her heart."

"It's a known complication of chest compressions. It happens all the time." Shepard tried to reassure him.

Burke nodded silently as the techs placed the drapes over her body, and felt a pang of relief that she was covered. "Well...it still hurts."

Derek nodded, "I heard it was Meredith...the other driver."

"I do not want to talk about it. Not with you. Not now." he sighed, leaning against the wall to try to gain some stability.

Erica Hahn joined the two in the scrub room, "Gentleman..." she nodded, then looked up to realize it was Burke standing in the corner. "Preston, what a lovely surprise, why is it that I find myself getting called to do more and more of your surgeries?"

"You're out of line Dr. Hahn." Shepard threatened.

"No, it's okay." Burke mumbled quietly. "That patient...the patient on your table is Cristina Yang."

Erica stopped for a moment, and continued scrubbing. "She has a lot of promise to be a prominent cardiothoracic surgeon." unable to think of anything to say.

"She has a lot of promise as be a lot of things. But more than that...the patient on your table is the woman I love, and if you can't fix her, or if you have doubts as to what you're about to do..."

"Then what, Preston? You're going to operate on her? I don't think so." Erica snapped, dropping her used scrub brush into the trash.

"We're going to take care of her, Burke." Shepard assured him, backing into the OR. "We're going to get her through this."

Burke looked away from Hahn, "Take care of her." was all he could choke out.

"I'm the best." she replied dryly, holding her hands up to maintain sterility.

"In this moment, you are the best." he repeated quietly.

Erica Hahn was shocked.

She knew as an intern that Cristina was a very special woman. Talented, professional, clean.

But she never knew that Cristina was special to a man in the way that she was special to Burke. She was enough for Preston Burke to abandon his ego, and that said something.

"She'll be fine, Preston.", she mumbled, ready to enter the OR.

"She had better be."

A/N: I can't stop myself. Again. sigh I know there isn't a lot of Bang, but we have to delve into the what Meredith did thing too, it wouldn't be a complete story without her side of it!


	5. Chapter 5

"She's a mess."

"That's obvious enough, Dr. Shepard. She got T-boned by a car estimated to be going 45 miles an hour. By all rights she should be dead." Hahn commented dryly.

He looked up to study the woman so new to their hospital, "I think we can live without those comments, Dr. Hahn. The man who loves her is standing right there in the scrub room, and there's nothing to say that he can't hear every word that we're saying."

"Right. Her boyfriend. I never imagined the Preston Burke as the type to screw interns."

"The word 'screw' does not apply to their relationship. What they have is real, tried and true. And I think that's a topic that we should avoid as well." He muttered, shaking his head.

"The pericardial damage is only slight. Preston does some damn good compressions. Any harder and he would've crushed her heart...but they were good enough to get it going, it shouldn't have restarted with the side of the hemopneumothorax." her voice was cold.

"She's weak." Shepard noted, suctioning the fluid from her brain, "Her brain is swollen, and I've barely gotten half of the fluid removed that I need to. Where are you at, Hahn?"

"Suturing the pericardial sac now." she nodded, "I'll be able to close in just a few minutes. Is she going to come out of this?"

Shepard looked at her, fear in his eyes, "I don't know."

"Heard it was your girlfriend that was responsible for this." she remarked dryly, assessing the sutures.

"Dr. Grey is not my girlfriend."

"She was."

"This is not up for discussion, Dr. Hahn." he muttered, placing a drain deep into her basilar skull to drain off excess fluid."

"Duly noted, Dr. Shepard. I'm ready to take her off bypass."

Shepard finished suctioning the area, "Let me close the skull flap and I'll be ready to go."

Burke watched as they tediously worked to repair the damage done to Cristina's body by Meredith's car.

Twice he had vomited into a nearby biohazard can.

He finally understood why she couldn't 'stick' when he was in surgery...when he was in the hospital.

It physically hurt for her to see him like that, as it was hurting him now.

He watched as the techs began to flip off the bypass machines and Hahn intently watched her heart.

There were no complications.

He looked to the monitor to assess her vitals.

There was a good rhythm and rate.

He sunk into the corner of the scrub room overcome by relief and grief all at the same time.

She would be okay. She would make it.

She still had to recover, but his Cristina was a fighter.

She could overcome anything.

O'Malley stepped into the scrub room and found him, kneeling by his side. "Dr. Burke..."

Burke took a deep breath and rose from the floor, his hands coming to rest on the scrub sink, hunched over, his face hidden.

A solitary tear fell from his face and landed on the sink, "What is it O'Malley?"

"Um...is she..." his voice trailed off. His eyes were soft, sad...sympathetic. There was disbelief there as well.

Disbelief that Preston Burke was in front of him actually broken and vulnerable all because of the woman that has made his life near-miserable at times as an intern.

"She's going to be okay...she has a long way to go, but she's going to be okay." he sighed.

"Good...that's good." George stuttered. "Um...Meredith...she wants to talk to you."

Burke looked up at George, "She wants to talk to me?", the sadness within him quickly turning to rage. "The woman who nearly killed Cristina because she couldn't be responsible about her drinking and operating a vehicle wants to talk to me?" his voice started to raise considerably.

"That's a no..." George muttered.

"No, I'll talk to her. I'll talk to her when Cristina is better. As in out of the hospital and at home, and able to come back to work better. I'll talk to her when the anger, the rage inside me has subsided to where I don't feel the urge to do to her what she has done to the woman I love!" he was yelling now. He slammed an open hand against the wall, knocking down the boxes of scrub packets. "Do you see, O'Malley? Do you see what your friend has done to Cristina? She's never going to be the same...she had a head injury. Her personality, everything that I fell in love with about her could be gone now. For all I know, she might not remember me. And you want me to go talk to Meredith?"

George was taken aback. He'd never seen Burke in this condition before, anger and rage had twisted his normally placid features.

"You don't have to talk to her. She just...she wanted me to ask." he mumbled low. "I've...never really gotten to know, Cristina, y'know...I've always just thought of her as being really driven and cold, and smart, and...well, she knows what she wants."

"Yes."

"And, I know that somewhere deep down, she's really not, because sometimes, you can see that she really cares. A lot. More than she'd ever publicly let on."

"Yes."

"Well, I just wanted to say...she's a good person. A strong person. And she loves you...and you guys will make it through this. You guys can make it through anything. You're Burke and Cristina, and you guys are invincible or something." he finished, jamming his hands in his pockets.

"You're still my man, O'Malley." he mumbled low, knowing it was what George needed to hear in that instance.

Shepard came into the scrub room, "She looks good, Preston. She had a lot of swelling, but I have a drain in place, and Erica said there wasn't much damage to the pericardium. She did fine coming off bypass. Now all we have to do is watch and wait."

"Thank you, Shepard. Are you taking her to recovery?"

"No, they're going to go ahead and take her to the ICU, recovery is swamped from the all of the accidents today." he sighed. "I'm really sorry, about..." he stopped himself. He was getting ready to say he was sorry about Meredith.

But it wasn't his responsibility to apologize for her anymore.

"I'm sorry about the accident." he finished, toweling off his hands.

Burke nodded, "I need to go to her room. I want to be there for her...if...when she wakes up."

He silently cursed himself for doubting her.

She would wake up.

And he would be there.

A/N: One more to go tonight, because I have to get the next one out of my head so I can think clearly during class tomorrow. :)


	6. Chapter 6

"Cook line...ETT...Foley...PIV...Drain...EKG...Pulse Oximetry...Chest tube.", Burke mumbled to himself studying the tubes leading from Cristina's broken body to various monitors and machines.

He studied the EKG, she still had a strong rhythm and heart rate.

She was strong.

He continuously assessed her face for signs of discomfort that would indicate she needed more pain medicine and he would press the button on the PCA pump for her, relaxing the grimace that would paint itself upon her face.

Her hand was cold as he clutched it between his, watching and waiting for her eyes to open.

He just wanted to see her eyes, if she could just open her eyes he could tell her that everything was going to be okay, and she could tell him that she was okay.

They spoke volumes to each other just with a single glance.

They'd come so far in the past months, overcoming his tremors and the deceit and the fallout afterwards.

They were talking about marriage.

"Dr. Burke." Callie Torres was in the door of Cristina's room.

"Dr. Torres?" Burke questioned, "Why are you here?"

"Evaluation of a dislocated mandible." she held up the chart. "She's pretty banged up. Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about me." he muttered, "Dislocation is much better than fracture. It means you won't have to wire her jaw, right?"

"Yeah, I don't need to wire it judging from the films, I'll just need to reset it." she nodded, palpating lightly along Cristina's jaw line. "The dislocation isn't severe at all...has she had any pain meds?"

He reached up to the PCA button with a weary hand and pressed it. "Go ahead."

She nodded, pulling her white lab coat off and lying it on Cristina's bed.

"Cristina...she's just going to reset your jaw because it got dislocated in the accident. I already gave you some more morphine." he mumbled close into her ear, though he knew there wouldn't be a response.

Dr. Torres slid her hands under Cristina's jaw and pulled it up and out in a rapid motion that would appear unskilled and clumsy to most, but her jaw fell back into place with a sickening thud and Cristina grimaced after she removed her hands.

"She didn't like that." Dr. Torres frowned, "She might swell up a little bit in the coming days, but other than that, she won't have any complications. You may need to give her another hit of Morphine in about 15 minutes. She'll be sore for a little bit."

"I think a sore jaw is the least of her problems, Dr. Torres." he frowned.

She nodded politely, "Alright, I'll be by tomorrow to check on her. Get some rest, Dr. Burke...you're going to need it."

"I won't rest until she wakes up." he mumbled. "Thank you, Dr. Torres."

After she left the room he laid his head on her bed, kissing her hand. "If you would just open your eyes for me, Cristina..." he spoke quietly, his heart heavy and sad. "If you would just quit being so stubborn and open your eyes for me, I would know you were okay."

He looked up as if his request would suddenly compel her near lifeless body to do so, but her eyes remained closed.

His own eyes felt heavy and tired, but he would not allow himself sleep. Instead, he started to go over the lines she had again in his mind, anything to keep him awake.

He knew even if he would try to sleep that he wouldn't be able to for the mere fact that she would not be in his arms.

Her hair wouldn't be in his face, her hand wouldn't be lightly rested on his. She wouldn't be there.

And he wouldn't sleep.

The seconds rapidly turned to minutes, and the minutes to hours, and he had drifted to sleep despite his best efforts not to, his head resting on her bed, her hand in his.

In his dreams the accident played over and over again, and all he could see was her body being slammed into his as if she were a rag doll.

He started CPR all over again, watched as the Paramedics flung her onto the board.

His heart was screaming to wake up, to quit reliving the nightmare, but his mind wouldn't let him.

It was her hand moving that finally brought him to.

He woke with a start, and felt her hand grasping his tightly.

He stood with a start, and looked to her face, her eyes were open in panic and tear filled, a grimace upon her face.

He reached for the PCA button and jammed it over and over again, "I'm sorry...I'm sorry, Cristina." he kept repeating, cursing himself for falling asleep.

He glanced at the vent settings to see if she was still relying heavily upon the machine for her to breathe and his heart lightened a bit when he saw that she could feasibly begin weaning from the vent.

He looked back down at her, "It's okay...I'm here...I'm here. It's okay." he mumbled, brushing a strand of hair from her face. "We got in an accident and you had to have surgery, but you're okay...Dr. Shepard and Dr. Hahn did surgery."

She closed her eyes, another tear falling and opened them. There was question in her eyes.

"I'm okay, too. Just a laceration on my forehead and some lacerations to my arm...I'm fine." he assured her, placing a kiss upon her forehead.

She closed her eyes again.

Burke wiped the tears from her eyes, "I gave you some more pain medicine...the pain should subside soon, Cristina. I'm sorry, I fell asleep..."

She opened her eyes and with a single glance told him it was okay, blinking them softly.

"I'm going to talk to the doctor to see if we can get you weaned on the vent...you could probably be extubated, but I don't want to push it." he spoke quietly, "And your incisions look good...there isn't any drainage or redness...no signs of infection. They had to empty your drain at least twice before I fell asleep. It looks like it needs to be emptied again...there was a hematoma pressing against your medulla, but Shepard fixed it."

He began rambling off everything he could. He just wanted her to stay awake. "There was injury to your pericardial sac, but Dr. Hahn did a wonderful job of repairing it, and you've got a good strong rhythm..."

She squeezed his hand, her way of telling him to shut up.

He fell silent, studying her eyes, and their eyes stayed connected for what seemed like an hour, having a conversation without words.

Finally, she started to drift off to sleep, the medicine finally taking it's full effect. He brushed a kiss against her forehead once more, "I love you." he whispered into her ear.

Her eyes opened with a flutter, fighting the medicine to connect with his once more.

Her eyes said it all. 'I love you, too.'

He sat back down in his chair, laying his head back on the bed, her hand grasped tightly in his, thankful that he was able to see her eyes.

When the doctors rounded he would get the vent settings turned down so that she could be extubated and he could hear her voice once more.

His closed his eyes, once more, vowing to himself that he was just going to rest his eyes this time and he wouldn't fall asleep when a voice interrupted that thought.

"Dr. Burke...is she okay?"

It was Meredith.

A/N: Ha ha. I'm not the queen of cliffhangers, but I really do try. :) Hope you guys like it as much as I like writing it.


	7. Chapter 7

Anger.

Anger was the only word to describe exactly what Preston Burke was feeling, "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to check on Cristina..." her voice low, sorrowful as she gazed past Burke to her broken friend.

"You do not have the right to check on her." he uttered, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her from the room. "You nearly killed her."

"You don't think I know that by now? You don't think it's been shoved in my face?" she pulled her arm back.

"Shouldn't you be in jail?" he hissed at her, venom in every word.

"I'm on bail. She's still my friend...it wasn't like I did this intentionally."

Debbie placed a hand on Burke's back, "I'm going to do a quick assessment...are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Debbie. Thank you." he nodded.

She disappeared into Cristina's room. "I won't be long."

"Is she okay? I just want to know if she's okay." Meredith persisted.

Before he could answer, Debbie grabbed his arm, "Dr. Burke...I think you need to see this." There was a sense of urgency in her tone.

"Stay there." he commanded Meredith.

He followed her into the room and looked down on what had caused the seasoned nurse such alarm.

"I think it's a DVT in the femoral artery..."

His heart sank at the sight of her right calf and foot. It was a sickly purple color and freezing cold to the touch. "It's obstructing the blood return...there's vascular compromise. We need to page Dr. Shepard and Dr. Hahn immediately."

Debbie disappeared from the room and Meredith stood at the edge of the door.

Burke looked up to her, his anger turned to concern for Cristina, "Take a look, Grey...do you see what you've done to her. She's got countless tubes coming from her body, and now? Now her leg could be amputated because of a thrombus formation. Healthy women don't form thrombi on their own. That's your fault. So to answer your question? No. It's not okay. And if you don't leave this room right now and never come back, I will take out a restraining order against you. You've done enough here." he muttered, carefully covering her leg back up.

Meredith's mouth hung open in protest, tears falling from her eyes, "I'm sorry." she choked out.

"Go."

She walked away, her head hanging in shame. She had nearly killed her friend.

And she may have ended her career as well.

Burke moved to the head of the bed, where Cristina lay in a drug induced peace, unaware of what was going on with her leg.

He brushed his lips against her forehead, his eyes burning with exhaustion and frustration, "Cristina..." he mumbled low and half-heartedly.

She needed to know that she had to have more surgery, but at the same time, he didn't want to tell her.

She'd already been through so much.

"Cristina." he said again, his voice cracking as he softly rubbed her arm.

Her eyes fluttered a bit, but fell shut again.

He let out a long exhale, leaning in close to her ear. "You have to have surgery on your knee, Cristina. There's a DVT there and they need to get it out..."

She didn't open her eyes, but she felt the back of her hand move against his arm, and he grasped it tightly. "It will be okay...you will be okay." he mumbled. "It just means you're going to be stuck with that tube a little longer, but that's okay. I just want you to rest and get better."

God how he longed just to hear the sound of her voice. It had only been a little over 36 hours, but it had seemed like years since she had spoken.

"Just get better for me, baby.." he whispered, unable to say more for fear that he'd lose control, and he had to stay strong for her.

Her hand tightened around his.

"Preston." Dr. Hahn addressed him from the opposite side of the bed.

"Dr. Hahn. She has a DVT that's blocking the femoral artery on the right side. There's vascular compromise." he reported to her in a low and quiet voice.

She pulled back the sheet and saw the condition of her leg. "That's the textbook definition of vascular compromise. What am I doing?"

"Remove the thrombus...give her a chance. I had them page Shepard so that he could repair any nerve damage." he sighed.

Normally, Erica Hahn would take orders from nobody, but seeing Burke in this state disheartened her. She did not prey upon the weak, and in this moment, Preston Burke was very weak.

"I'll get her into surgery now." she replied quietly, signing the chart and leaving the two to bark orders at the nurses to prepare her for surgery.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Stevens, I need more suction. Can you not see the blood coming from the artery?" Hahn snapped at Isobel Stevens.

She applied suction to the area, her heart heavy with sadness.

She couldn't believe that Meredith had done this to Cristina. "Will her...will she..." her voice trailed off.

"I don't know if she's going to lose her leg. This thrombus is about the size of a golf ball, and God only knows how long it took the nurses to catch it. I don't know if it came up over night or if it was there directly after the accident."

She gently extracted the thrombus from the artery, scooping it into a nearby pan. "Stevens, why do we release the clips slowly on the artery after the thrombus is removed?"

"To reduce the risk of ischemia in the patient due to the reestablishment of normal blood return to the heart." she rambled off.

"Very good." She nodded, releasing the last clip from the femoral artery, watching her rhythm closely. "Looks good. Now we watch and wait to see how her vascular system cleans up the mess that this puppy made. Dr. Shepard, do you want to assess the nerves?"

"I'll close up, Dr. Hahn." was his reply as he stepped in on other side of the table, his voice cold and complacent.

"I'd like to stay if you don't mind."

"I do mind."

"Well, it's a good thing that she's my patient too and that you can't kick me out of my OR then, isn't it?" she fired back, watching as he used an EMG to assess the nerves.

"There doesn't seem to be any nervous damage." he mumbled, watching her toes twitch from the electrical stimulation to the nerves.

"That's good." Izzie remarked, her voice lighter. "That's good, isn't it?"

"Just because her neuros are good doesn't mean that her vascular will be." Dr. Hahn pointed out rather harshly. "Your nerves mean shit if you don't have vasculature."

"I prefer the power of positive thinking." Shepard sighed, suturing the back of her knee closed very gingerly, trying to lessen the scar that it would leave.

"So...what do we do then?" Izzie questioned a few minutes later, breaking the uncomfortable silence in the room.

"We just have to watch and wait." Hahn replied, looking at the harshly discolored leg. "We watch and we wait."

A/N: I could sit here and right all night. Seriously, I could, but I have a huge OB test to study for tonight and a final to take online, and study guides to work on, but I am going to write one more chapter because I have to get out some frustrations, but just to keep you updated on the progress of the story, I outlined 6 chapters today, and the last chapter I outlined definitely isn't anywhere close to being the last, so I hope you guys are in for the long haul. :)


	8. Chapter 8

Meredith paced nervously outside of Cristina's room. Izzie had said that Bailey made Burke go lie down in the on-call room in an hour.

So that meant she had 10 minutes to say her piece and walk away.

Even if Cristina couldn't hear a word she said.

She advanced in to the room, tears already welling in her eyes, "Cristina...oh..."

She glanced at the ventilator, the chest tube, everything hooked up to her, keeping her alive, monitoring how alive she was exactly, and her heart was broken. "I'm so sorry...I never would've drove my car if I would've known that you were going...that I was."

She grasped her hand in hers, but Cristina did not respond to her touch, "God, I'm so sorry."

She bit her lip, "So...I drove home from Joe's. Derek left me there alone, drunk, and I was just going to go home. He's going back to Addison, y'know...which doesn't matter to me now. What matters is you get better. I had to go to court, but I got out on bail...which is weird for me to say, because I've never done anything crazy in my life...I could lose my medical license, but it doesn't matter to me because I just want you to be okay, I want to know that I didn't kill my sister...I wish you were awake so I could ask you about medical review boards because you know everything, and I don't know what I'm up against. Anyway, you don't care. You probably hate me. And you can, and that's okay with me." she rambled on through tears. "I'm so sorry..."

"You're gonna be sorry if Burke catches your sorry ass in this room, Grey." Bailey added, her arms crossed over her chest from the doorway of the room.

"Oh, Dr. Bailey, I'm sorry...I just...I had to talk to her. I had to see her." she sniffed, lying her hand in the bed.

"Get. Now." she pointed towards the door. "And don't let me catch you in here again."

Meredith scampered out of the room, and Bailey glanced over to the bed to see Cristina's eyes wide open.

"You heard every damn word she said, didn't you?" she asked her nose wrinkled. "You're scandalous, Yang."

Cristina blinked, some of her spunk flashing in her eyes, but then they changed to a look of confusion.

"Do you know what happened?" she asked, leaning down towards the bed so Cristina could hear her better over the hum of the ventilator.

She tried to shake her head gently to indicate that she didn't, but Bailey stopped her.

"I'll take that as a no." she took a deep breath and looked over her shoulder. "You and Burke were in an accident. The driver T-Boned your side of the car and you had a lot of damage, Cristina. Broken ribs, a hemopneumothorax, subdural hematoma to the medullar region...Dr. Shepard had to cut off some of those crazy black curls of yours, but he did a good job."

Cristina closed her eyes for a moment, too weak to reach her hair, but at the same time wondered exactly how bad it was.

"Dr. Hahn had to repair some damage to your pericardial sac, and you had a DVT removed yesterday morning...you've been through a lot, but Dr. Hahn was talking earlier about getting you extubated tomorrow morning so we can all listen to you run your mouth again." Bailey smiled, trying to make light of the situation, but Cristina grabbed her hand, looking towards the door.

"You want to know about Meredith." she frowned, and Cristina squeezed indicating that she wanted to know.

At least in Bailey's mind.

"The driver of the other car, Cristina. It was Meredith. She was drunk, and the damn fool smashed into you. Your crazy boyfriend has reamed her a new one several times, but she keeps coming to check on you...she is so sorry, Cristina. And I don't expect you to forgive her, but please understand that she's sorry." she spoke in a hushed voice.

"What are you doing, Dr. Bailey?" Burke was behind her, looking to Cristina who's eyes were wide open, telling him to calm down.

"She has a right to know about what happened, Preston. She has a right to know what's happened to her and what's going on." she explained, stepping back from the bed as he bent in over her to give her a kiss on the forehead, ignoring the threatening statments she was making with her eyes.

"And she would've known when she was better." he snapped back at her.

"She needed to know now...knowing the truth isn't going to kill her, she knows what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger." she fought.

"It wasn't your place to tell her, Dr. Bailey. It was mine. I am the one that's here for her, I am the one that's here to take care of you. Not her."

"I am one of her doctor's and I'll be damned if it's not in my place, you're her damn boyfriend, and you're trotting around here like you're her legal guardian, doctor and husband. You need to chill out." Bailey furrowed her brow. "You need to take a step back, go outside, get some fresh air. She has friends here that can watch her, stay with her."

Cristina laid in bed, desperately wanting to speak up for herself, wanting to tell Burke to calm down, that she was okay, but she couldn't get anywhere.

She silently cursed the tube in her throat, a tear sliding down her cheek.

"I will stay with her." he looked down to her and saw the tear slip from her eye, leaning over to wipe it from her cheek, ignoring Bailey. "Thank you, Dr. Bailey."

Bailey started to turn to leave the room then stopped, her mouth open, "It's not hard to see that you're putting yourself in a very dark place right now, and it's not hard to see that you're going to drag her down there with you if you don't snap out of it. If you ever intend to take care of her...you have to take care of yourself. And as a damn doctor, you know that." she spat, finally leaving the room.

Burke silently cursed Bailey for telling Cristina and glanced down at her, there was anger in her eyes.

She was telling him to quit being so stubborn.

"I am fine, right now."

She persisted with the angry eyes.

"I will rest when I get tired...quit looking at me like that...I'll tell them to keep that thing in longer." he joked lightly, knowing he'd never be able to carry through on the threat.

She closed her eyes, exhausted herself.

He placed a kiss on her forehead, "You can curse my existence tomorrow." he mumbled in her ear, then took his seat by her bedside, watching her numbers and waiting until the moment that he could hear the sound of her voice.

A/N: Okay, maybe I should take the time to explain some stuff to those of you reading who don't know. You're probably going "Um...she's awake with a tube in her throat..." In many medical dramas, they show the gagging, fighting, self-extubation point of that, which can happen, but more often than not, with enough pain meds in the system and some other drugs, patients can remain awake on these tubes for very prolonged periods of time, and it's only when they are fully breathing over the ventilator settings that they can be extubated- thus the eye conversations. As for the DVT from the last chapter, that's a deep vein thrombosis, or a big fat blood clot. The location of the clot, in the femoral artery, is found in the back of the bend of your knee, thus why her calf and foot were discolored- this only happens with the most extreme cases of DVT, but it does happen (And it's really not pretty...people shouldn't have purple skin by any means.) Anyway, I hope you're enjoying it. I still have 20 minutes before I really have to crack down, so I might just go ahead and write another chapter really quick... ;) I can't stop myself!


	9. Chapter 9

"Burke..." a hoarse whisper floated his way.

His eyes fluttered for a moment and he closed his eyes again, the sunlight momentarily blinding him.

Just a few minutes of sleep. He wanted to hear her voice again.

"Burke. Wake up." another whisper.

Finally a weak tap on his head brought him to and he cursed reality as he looked up to Cristina.

"Hi." she half smiled, her face still swollen from her dislocated jaw.

"They extubated already?" he asked, running his hand over her face. "Why didn't they wake me??" he stopped for a moment, his excitement getting the best of him. "It doesn't matter...it's out."

"My..." she started.

He laid a finger over her lips. "Shh. Don't waste your voice."

She grabbed his hand, and lowered it to her chest, "Come here."

He leaned over her bed, "Cristina..." he breathed, looking into her eyes.

This was the best day yet, her color was returning, and the horrible tube obstructing her beautiful face was gone.

"Closer." she persisted, her voice cracking.

He moved in closer and she reached as much as she could, placing a soft kiss on his lips that only lasted a fleeting second.

But in that second, he felt renewed, reassured, that everything would be okay.

"Thank you."

He started to question her for a second, and then thought better of it. "There are no thanks need, Cristina...I love you, and you know that." he chided lightly, his hand stroking the side of her face.

She closed her eyes, turning away from him for a moment, "My leg..."

"Oh...I thought Bailey told you about that." he frowned looking down. "Has Hahn been into look at it?"

"I'm right here, actually." she stepped into the room, "You look better, Dr. Yang, how do you feel?"

She tried clearing her throat before speaking to give her voice a little strength, but it failed miserably, "My chest is sore."

Burke looked at her, his eyebrow raised, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"'Cause I can barely talk." her voice faded in and out, "And you just woke up."

He sighed as Dr. Hahn pulled the curtain around the bed to provide her privacy, "Should we kick him out?" she asked dryly.

But Cristina understood her sense of humor. "Nothin' he hasn't seen before." she replied in an equally dry manner, as much as her voice would let her.

She pulled the gown back to reveal a reddened and dehisced incision with drainage at the distal edges, "It's infected...we'll start you on Ampicillin and Gentamycin. That should clear it up nicely..." she sighed, pulling the gown back up.

"What, did you cut her open with a dirty scalpel?" Burke felt anger rising deep in his psyche.

"Burke." Cristina chided, her shock making her voice momentarily stronger, "It happens..."

"Chill out, loverboy and sit down. I'm sure you've seen an infection, she was prone to an infection from the beginning with the accident, and you know that." she pulled the blanket up to reveal her right calf.

It was still very ruddy, but the temperature had drastically increased, "That's what I like to call pink, warm and dry." she commented, "Can you feel me touching your toes?"

Cristina nodded, her eyes stuck on Burke.

"Can you wiggle your toes?"

She wiggled her toes back and forth for her, still studying him.

"You look much better. I'm going to go order those antibiotics. Keep him in line since he obviously can't control himself." she nodded, setting her chart back on the edge of the bed and disappearing.

She grabbed his hand that was resting on her bed and looked at him, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You have an infection in an open chest incision, that's what's wrong with me." he muttered, "If I would've done it..."

"If you could cut my chest open with a scalpel, I would be worrried." she interrupted, her voice still barely a whisper.

He let out a slight chuckle, "You're still you."

"You need to chill out." she sighed, "I'm fine."

"You are far from fine. You still have a chest tube and a drain and you're still healing, an infection can set us back at least 2 weeks from getting home." he replied, gently rubbing the back of her hand. "I just want to go home."

"Steps."

He looked at her in curiousity, "What's steps have to do with anything?"

"I'm slow...I do steps...using keys.." she paused to clear her throat, "getting rid of my apartment...steps."

He nodded, reaching to brush a strand of hair from her face, "Steps."

"We're here now..." she mumbled, her eyes feeling heavy.

"And that's all that matters." he finished, standing to place one more kiss upon her lips before she drifted back to sleep.

A/N: Fluffy chapter. You love me. :) But we're not out of the woods yet.


	10. Chapter 10

It had been one week, 4 days, 12 hours, and 8 minutes since Burke had nearly lost the woman he was so enchanted with.

He watched from the side of her bed, grasping her hand tightly as Dr. Shepard removed the drain from the base of her skull.

Another step.

Earlier this morning she had her chest tube pulled, and the extra peripheral IV line pulled.

More steps.

Steps towards going home.

Steps towards getting better.

"You better not have butchered my hair, Shepard." she muttered jokingly as he slid the drain out.

"My other job is in a beauty salon, Yang." he joked back, pulling the suture strings to close the minute incision left.

"I doubt that." she sighed, reaching to feel for the clump of hair that was missing.

"I saved your life, y'know. You should be thankful or something. Not complaining about your $75,000 hair cut." he tossed the drain in the trash and stood across the bed from Burke. "I don't know how you put up with her."

Burke nodded, "I do." was all he replied.

There was still a bitterness lingering in his heart towards Shepard. Somehow he had transferred the responsibility for the accident onto him as well as Meredith, and try as he might to shove it out of his heart, out of his mind.

It still lingered.

"Well, I hope this room is a bit better for you than the ICU, a bit more quiet, maybe." he smiled, signing the chart and placing it back at the end of the bed.

"I was tired of Nurse Debbie...I swear that she was trying to kill me when she was hooking up my antibiotics. I told Burke to double check the bags to make sure it wasn't cyanide." she scoffed.

"Debbie took excellent care of you, Cristina." Burke sighed. "I told you she was the one who caught your leg..."

"I know, I know, and I have to thank her or whatever."

Burke smiled inwardly, committing this moment to memory.

His Cristina was making a comeback, and much faster than he could've ever hoped.

"Well, I'd love to stay and chit chat with you, Dr. Yang..."

"Cristina." she cut him off, "You can call me Cristina. For now. But when I'm back to work, don't even dream of it. The meds have gotten to me or something..."

He grinned as he left her room, "I'm going to tell everyone."

After she was sure the door was closed, she gingerly slid over in the bed, guarding her ribs. "God, that hurts."

"What are you doing?"

She patted the empty space she'd left on the bed, without saying a word.

"Cristina..." he breathed.

He longed to just hold her in his arms, he'd thought about it every second since she'd been in the hospital.

"You're too sore...your ribs still haven't..."

"Get over here, I told you I'm fine." she cut him off.

He slid into the bed next to her, carefully scooping her up into his arms. "I missed you." he mumbled, kissing her forehead gently.

She closed her eyes, a single tear of happiness sliding down her cheek.

"Are you crying? I told you that I'd hurt you."

"I'm not crying." she sniffed. "My eye was watering."

He nodded, resting his head against her pillow, taking in the sensations that overwhelmed his body just from being close to her once again.

They remained silent for what seemed like forever, just taking each other in, reveling in being in each other's arms once more.

Cristina was the one to finally break the silence, "Have you heard about Meredith?" she mumbled.

"We don't need to worry about her right now." he replied, anger flaring within him from the mere mention of her name.

"Burke, I want to talk to her...she's my friend, even if she did make a mistake."

"Her mistake nearly killed you." he uttered low. "She was reckless...irresponsible."

"We've never done anything that was reckless or irresponsible?" she questioned, knowing she was pushing his buttons.

"We didn't almost kill anybody."

"She wasn't trying to kill me, Burke. It was an accident." she argued.

"She almost took from me the one thing I cannot live without...I am allowed to be angry for that." he mumbled into her ear, kissing her forehead again.

Cristina remained quiet for a second, absorbing the words he'd just said.

Just a few months ago, he'd told her that his hands were the only thing of value to him, and over the past week, she'd seen something different.

She'd always known that Burke loved her, that he cared for her.

But she'd never felt like he did.

"I don't have to be angry for that." she finally spoke, her voice quiet but steady.

She was not giving up on this.

"When you're better."

"I am better." she protested.

His Cristina was definitely back in full swing, as stubborn as ever.

"You can talk to her later...I'll have someone find her later. But for now? For now I want to lay here with you."

Cristina smiled, closing her eyes. "I can handle that."

A/N: Another fluffy. For now. Don't get used to it...and I should be sleeping, BTW.


	11. Chapter 11

Meredith quietly slipped into room 4185 of the surgical unit, her eyes falling upon Cristina and Burke, lying together in her bed, fast asleep.

She smiled to herself for a moment, then frowned, remembering that they'd be at home in their own bed if she hadn't made the decision to drive home from the bar.

Aching to talk to Cristina, she nodded her head, looking down then decided better than waking her, and turned to leave the room.

"Stay. She wants to talk to you." she heard Burke mumble, the bed sheets shuffling as he stood from the bed.

"I'm sorry. I know you told me not to come, but she's...she's my sister." she sighed, her hands falling to her side.

"I said she wants to talk to you...that didn't require a reply." he spat, leaning over to rouse Cristina with a kiss on the cheek. "Baby...Cristina. Meredith is here."

She opened her eyes for a moment and closed them again, "Just five more minutes..." she mumbled.

"No, you need to wake up. She's here now and I need to go get us some dinner anyway." he nudged her gently, "You have to eat."

She opened her eyes and let out a long yawn, "Okay." she turned to meet his lips in a quick kiss, "Come back soon?"

"Of course."

"Be careful?"

"Always." he nodded, turning to leave. He cast a sideways glance at Meredith as he strode towards the door, "If there's anything this has taught me it's to be careful because you don't know what kind of condition the idiots on the roads drive in, right, Grey?"

"Burke." Cristina chided quietly.

"No, Cristina. I deserved that."

"You deserve a lot more than that." he muttered and left the room.

"He's still upset. He'll get better."

Meredith sat on the edge of Cristina's bed, soft and slow as not to move the bed too much. "What about you?" she asked, her voice low.

"I'm fine." Cristina replied, her voice equally as quiet.

"Typical."

The two sat in silence for 15 minutes, not looking at or speaking to each other, wrestling with their minds over the words to say. What was there to say.

"What do you want me to say?" Cristina finally questioned, pushing a strand of hair from her face.

Her chest felt tight, but she pushed it away as having slept funny.

"Tell me that you hate me, tell me that you wish I was dead, tell me something. Cristina, I almost...I almost..."

"Killed me. I know. Burke reminds me of that everyday." she sighed.

"Well, I know how he feels about it, but what about you?" Meredith pressed, unsure of whether or not she wanted to hear the answers.

"I'm angry, upset...you're a doctor, for God's sake, Mer. You of all people should know about driving drunk."

Meredith stood from the bed, "I've learned my lesson, trust me."

"Why are you standing up? Sit your ass down. I'm not done talking to you." Cristina snapped at her, her voice characteristically cocky.

Meredith plopped back down on the bed, speechless.

Cristina grimaced, placing an arm over her right side, "Hi...I have broken ribs that are sore. Do you think you could be just a little bit more careful?"

"Sorry. I didn't know...well, I should've known, that's pretty duh, but whatever."

"Whatever." Cristina repeated. "Listen, I could spend the rest of my life being mad at you, or we could do that thing...where one of us says something and the other one cries and stuff...or we could just be over it."

"I almost killed you."

"I thought we were past that point." Cristina remarked dryly.

"Why?" Meredith asked, her face twisted by disbelief.

"Why what?"

"Why forgive me?"

Cristina bit her lip for a second, "Breathe a word of this and I'll kill you..."

"You can hit me with a car." Meredith joked, then realizing what she'd said her face grew red in embarassment.

"Not funny."

"I know."

"So this thing...that Burke and I have. Before you hit us, he was talking about wanting to get married, and I was thinking of ways of jumping out of the car without injuring myself while he was talking about it. I know that he cares about me, and I know that he says I love you, but I never knew it, knew it. You know?"

Meredith nodded slowly unsure of where the conversation is going.

"So, then you hit us, and I didn't have to worry about talking about marriage anymore, and I woke up here, and he was there for me. He was there and he was worried, and he was taking care of me and doing all this macho man stuff that I never thought I would want in my life."

"I don't get what this has to do with me, Cristina." Meredith frowned, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You made him live moment to moment, taking care of me...and me? I'm not afraid of our future now, because I know that I love him." she rambled quickly, averting her eyes from Meredith.

"So, you're thanking me for almost killing you?" she scoffed.

"I never said thank you. I'm just saying that...whenever Burke said things happen for a reason, maybe he might be right or whatever."

"So, you and me...we're okay?" Meredith was in disbelief. She expected to get kicked out of her room within seconds, and once again Cristina caught her off guard.

"I don't know...you okay?"

"Well, I have to pay a $10,000 fine, and go to an outpatient rehab program for 30 days, and I'm on suspension, and the medical review board let me keep my license as long as I pay them a huge fine too..." she sighed, her hands running through her hair. "So I could be worse."

"You could be worse...I could be to." Cristina choked on her own words as she broke into a coughing fit.

"Cristina, are you okay, like physically?" Meredith questioned as her friend was fighting to catch her breath.

"I'm fine..." she exhaled, "I just got a little choked up or something."

Meredith nodded, unsure of whether or not she should believe her. "So...do you think Burke will forgive me?"

"I can't speak for him." Cristina frowned.

"No, she can't." Burke spoke from the doorway, a bag of Chinese food in his hands.

Meredith stood from the bed, looking to Cristina, "Thanks..." she mumbled quietly and slipped past Burke and out of the room.

"What did she have to say for herself?" he asked, setting down some vegetables and noodles in front of her.

"That she was sorry."

"It's not good enough." he placed some chopsticks in the noodles.

"It is for me."

A/N: Deny, deny, deny.


	12. Chapter 12

She was happy in his arms, Cristina had decided.

If she could stay in between his arms and a good surgery for the rest of his life, she would be set.

The tightness in her chest continued as she laid in bed next to him, his hand resting lightly on her hip. But she pushed it out of her mind as pain from the broken ribs.

"Dr. Shepard said you might get to go home the day after tomorrow...that you were doing really well." Burke mumbled, his face nuzzled against the back of her shoulder.

"Yeah." she exhaled, closing her eyes, trying to hide her pain.

"The Chief said my leave would cover me up to two months before I would have to file any other papers."

"I don't think I'll be home for that long. I want to get back to work..." she joked lightly.

He kissed the back of her neck, sending a shiver down the back of her neck, making her long even more for when she would be better enough to make love to him again. "You need to sleep and forget about work."

Without protest, she closed her eyes, "Okay."

He opened his eyes, worry in his expression. She never gave up that easy, but before he could protest, she was lightly snoring.

He settled his head back down into the nook between her shoulder and neck, and fell quickly asleep himself.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Dr. Burke..." a small voice called his name through the dark.

"Hmm?"

"Dr. Burke...can you get Cristina to wake up for me? I need her to go to the bathroom, her output is way under for the 24 hour totals." the young girl in pink scrubs laid her hand on Cristina. "She won't wake up for me."

"Cristina..." he brushed her hair away from her face.

No response.

"Cristina..." Burke mumbled, quickly waking from his restful sleep. "Are you okay?"

Her skin was abnormally warm, he thought for a moment it was because of him being so close to her, but he pulled away, laying his hand against her skin, and it was as if she was on fire. "She's burning up..." he muttered.

The tech ran out of the room and quickly returned with a dynamap and thermometer, her red ponytail bobbing behind her. She placed the thermometer under her arm and placed a blood pressure cuff around the other arm in what seemed to be a simultaneously move.

"Oh, God..." he mumbled, "Cristina, wake up..." he moved out of the bed quickly, trying to rouse her.

She did not respond.

"Cristina, baby, wake up." he flipped on the lights in the room, his own eyes hurting.

He looked down at her, her face and body was flushed, but her lips a pale color that scared him. "Cristina..."

"She's febrile, respers are 8..." she yanked the call light from the wall, "Tyler!! It's Dr. Yang!" she yelled out of the door.

"What's going on?" Tyler questioned, running into the room followed by a couple other nurses.

"She's got a temp of 105.4 and she's unresponsive." the tech reported quickly, ripping the covers back from her overheated body.

"She's barely breathing." he backed out of the way, watching as Tyler turned the O2 flowmeter up to 15 and then placed a mask on Cristina's face.

His heart ached as the nurses began to work on her, doing a well choreographed dance that he knew all too well.

"Her blood pressure is 93/42 but she's tachycardic in the 120's..." he heard a nurse call, "Where is Dr. Bailey? She's supposed to be on call..."

His world began to spin around him, just when they were getting ready to go home.

"Get her on some ringers wide open." he heard Bailey's voice, "We need to get her to radiology, and call ICU and tell them we need a bed."

He hadn't even seen her come in.

He fell back into a chair, as they carted Cristina out of the room, overwhelmed and exhausted, angry and sad all at the same time.

"Dr. Burke?" one of the nurse techs that had been helping to take care of Cristina crouched next to him.

"Yeah?" he mumbled, his voice sad.

"She's going to radiology...aren't you going to go with her?"

He looked to the young girl, concern shining in her bright blue eyes, "Yeah...I'm going."

"I can go with you...keep you company while they do their films." she offered, laying a hand on his.

"No, I'll be fine." he refused her.

He wanted to wallow in his own misery.

She stood from the floor and extended her hand, "Come on. I need a break anyway...your interns are driving me crazy already, and I'm not even a nurse yet."

He took her hand standing from the chair and then retracted it, feeling somewhat odd. "Okay."

Together they walked through the darkened halls of the hospital towards the radiology department in silence, and when they arrived in the reading room he watched through the glass as they did chest films.

"How long have you been with her?" the tech asked. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking..." she trailed off nervously.

"About 2 years now." he replied softly.

"And you haven't talked her into marrying you yet?" she chuckled looking at him. "If you've put up with Dr. Yang for 2 years, you deserve to keep her." she winked.

"She is stubborn, isn't she?"

"She is. She's also a fighter...she's strong willed, hard headed. Y'know, this might be another setback for you guys, but she's going to walk out of those doors, no matter how long it takes, she's going to walk out of those doors.."

He looked to the girl next to him. She couldn't be anymore than 20 years old, and looked younger than that, but somehow she had enough experience, enough wisdom to tell him exactly what he needed to hear.

"When do you graduate, Noreen?" he asked, eyeballing her name tag.

He'd never paid much attention to the nurse techs and care assistants before Cristina's accident, they'd never seemed like anybody important to him, but he came to realize that the techs and assistants were the nurse's eyes and ears.

"Next December...not soon enough." she muttered.

"You're going to be a wonderful nurse."

"I know." she winked. "It's just making it there. I've learned to take it one day at a time, y'know...I used to look forward to the end of the semester before it had ever begun, but last semester was different. I was looking at the end of the semester so hard, and moving onto the rotations that I wanted to, that I didn't focus on what I needed to. In the process I flunked a class. It turned my world upside down for weeks. But I decided to suck it up and keep going forward. It slowed me down, made me think and I definitely learned from it. I learned...well, I learned that you have to live moment to moment."

He looked through the window again and saw that Bailey was motioning towards him, but her eyes said it all.

It was more complications.

"So, moment to moment, huh?" he asked, laying his hand on the door to the X-Ray suite.

"Moment to moment, Dr. Burke." Noreen nodded, her eyes sparkling. "She'll go home."

A/N: Show your nurse techs some love! (Okay, so it's a bit cheesy, but we really do catch all the big stuff.) Anyway...so I bet you wonder what's wrong with her? You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out. :)


	13. Chapter 13

Burke stepped into Cristina's new room in the ICU and his heart sank at the sight of her hooked up to all of the monitors and pumps once again.

Bailey glanced up to him and frowned, "I'm sorry you have to go through all of this...it must be hard, seeing her this way."

He pressed his lips together, trying to picture her back to her old, normal, sarcastic and stubborn self.

He couldn't see her like that anymore.

Those memories were faded, occluded with the trauma of the accident, with the curse of complications.

Bailey placed her stethoscope back to Cristina's chest, watching her monitor simultaneously. She pulled it off and placed it back in it's place around her neck. "It's pneumonia, Preston. Some moderate atelectasis, but pneumonia, nonetheless. It happens. It's just a small setback." her hand came to rest on his arm.

"We were going to go home the day after tomorrow." he replied, his voice weary.

"It's a good thing you didn't. You would've had to come back."

"Just a few minutes at home would've been worth it." he sighed.

She looked at him, taking heed of his depressed mood, and sulking eyes, then crossed her arms over her chest, jutting one leg out to the side, "Preston Burke. She is sick. She is not dying, she is not dead. Sick. She's getting better. It's called a setback, get over it. I'm tired of seeing you run around this hospital like a wounded puppy dog. It's not like you."

"I love her." he muttered.

"Yeah, and that's why you need to quit acting like this. Did you ever stop to think for just a moment if you would just perk up and try to be positive it might have an effect. You've read the studies on the limbic system and how it affects our health. You even know yourself if the patient doesn't want to get better..." she trailed off.

"She won't."

"I didn't mean that." Bailey stumbled over her words, embarrassed.

"Please go."

Bailey nodded, "Just try to be positive."

His eyes followed her out of the room and he came to sit at Cristina's side, his body worn by exhaustion. "Cristina." he spoke gently to her sleeping form, running his hand over her burning skin.

Debbie entered the room with a basin of water, "Dr. Burke...I was just getting ready to sponge her off a little bit, maybe bring down that temp a little with the help of the Tylenol."

He rose to his feet, "I'll do it."

"Are you sure? You look so tired...maybe you should go rest for a while in one of the call rooms."

"I want to do it." he persisted, taking the basin from her and setting it on the over bed table.

She nodded and handed him the washcloths that she'd been juggling. "I'll get you a new gown for her. That one is soaked from her being so overheated..."

"Has she woken up yet?"

"No, she's still out of it. She should come around when the fever breaks. We see it all the time down here." she assured him, before disappearing out of the room.

He placed some of the cloths in the basin, his heart heavy and saturated them with lukewarm water.

Debbie came back into the room with a new gown, "Let me know when you're done, and I can get rid of this stuff." and she was gone again.

He moved up to the head of the bed, and lightly dabbed at her face, her features less marred by the swelling of her jaw dislocation, and the bruising. He moved gingerly around the scrapes, careful not to hit them and cause her more pain that she already had.

He stopped for a moment and brushed her curly black tresses from her face and back towards the pillow, then dabbed more at the area that was covered by her hair. He moved down to her neck, stopping to wet the cloth again.

He unbuttoned the sleeves of her gown, and pulled it down just enough to reveal the top of the incision from her heart surgery, and he traced his finger over the site. It was closed nicely, with just the edges still left to heal, a bright pink reminder against her porcelain skin that he had broken her.

Just like the scar that occupied her flat stomach, to remind him every time they made love.

He had broken her too many times.

He continued to absent mindedly trace the scar on her chest, feeling sorry for himself, wounded about the things that had happened to them in the past.

Maybe there was a sign that they missed along the way, a sign that this relationship was dangerous. That one of them would continually get hurt no matter what they did to try to prevent such things.

"I'm not in the mood baby." a light whisper rose from her pale lips, her eyes opened, a mischievous twinkle shining through.

He chuckled to, and replaced his finger with the damp cloth, working to cool her skin. "That's too bad."

She studied his eyes, his tense posture, and reached a hand up to place it over his arm, "Burke..."

"Don't say anything Cristina. You're weak." he chided, placing a new gown over her old.

It was true that it was a little harder for her to breathe with the collapse of her alveoli, but she wasn't weak. "You have got to snap out of this." she frowned, breathing heavily even with the aid of the nasal cannula delivering supplemental oxygen that her body couldn't get on it's own.

"Snap out of what, you're delusional. I'm fine."

"That's my line."

"Cristina.."

"Stop saying my name." she sighed, "You're not yourself. You're tired and sad and mopey, and you need to take care of yourself."

"I'm taking care of you." he snapped, placing her gown back on. "I have to take care of you."

She closed her eyes, turning her head away from him, "You can't take care of me if you're exhausted."

"I'm not exhausted."

"Burke, look at yourself. You're all stubbly, and you're eyes are as red as can be, and you're wearing the same clothes that you wore yesterday. Even I can see you're exhausted. The only person who doesn't see it is you."

She was gasping for air in between her words, using every bit of her will to coerce him into taking some time for himself.

He started to argue more, but his head turned towards the monitor as it alarmed as her sats dipped down to 86. "Cristina. No more arguing...no more talking."

But she persisted, "You go lay in the call room, and I do not want to see you for 8 hours..." she was breathing heavier. "Or I will keep going."

Her sats were 84, now, and her lips were growing more pale by the second.

"Cristina! Stop! Just let me sit here and take care of you..."

Debbie threw the curtain open and rushed to her bedside, pulling an oxygen mask from the counter and replacing her nasal cannula with it, turning the oxygen up to 8 liters, instead of the 4 she was on, "Cristina, what the hell are you doing?" she groaned.

Cristina pulled the mask from her face, "Make him rest..." she mumbled.

Debbie replaced the mask over her face, and looked up to Burke who's expression was twisted into one of frustration, panic, exhaustion and anger. "I think she's made it known what she wants, Dr. Burke."

They sat in silence, watching her numbers go up slowly back to 95. Still low, but where she'd been hanging out.

Debbie put her back on the nasal cannula, turning the oxygen up to 5 liters, "No more arguing with your stubborn boyfriend, Yang."

Cristina nodded, exhausted from the altercation and looked to Burke as Debbie left them alone. "Rest." she whispered.

He sat beside her bed in a chair, "Only if you tell me one thing..." he finally replied after a few moments, a million unbidden thoughts racing through his mind.

She nodded, trying to conserve her energy, her air.

"You...you want to get better, right? You want to go home with me, and you want to get better?" he questioned her, Bailey's words weighing on his mind the heaviest.

"I want to go home and I want to get better." she replied, her voice low and worn.

"Okay...okay, good." he felt a twinge of relief.

"I'll tell you a secret...if you promise to go rest for 10 hours." she lightly teased, her eyes heavy with sleep

"10 hours is a long time." he frowned.

"It's worth it." she assured him, grasping his hand in hers.

"Okay."

"I want to spend my future with you." she let out a long exhale, her eyes closing gently.

He was taken aback and stunned, but only for a moment, and the monitors in her room began to go insane.

High pitched shrills flooded his psyche, he tried to read the monitor but his eyes couldn't focus.

"Dr. Burke, get out of the way!" a female voice called, "Tanya, get him out of here! Put him in the on call room, and make sure he stays there!"

He felt himself being led out of the room, and then led into the call room.

"Hang out in here...we'll come get you in a while." Tanya smiled warmly, opening the door for him.

He fell into the bottom bunk, unsure of what had just happened, what was going on now.

He fought with his body to stay awake, to wait and hear what was going on, but in the end his body won and he fell into a tormented sleep.

A/N: Got one study guide done and this was my reward to myself for finishing it. :)


	14. Chapter 14

Burke woke up in the darkened call room with a start, cold sweat dripping from his forehead.

It took him a second to gather his bearings and figure out how he came to be in the call room.

Cristina had told him to go rest for 8 hours...then she said 10, and she'd tell him a secret, and she wanted their future to be together, and then.

Then her monitors started going off.

He flew from the bed and out of the call room, surely somebody would've come and gotten him if she'd...if she'd...

He pushed the thought from his mind with everything in him as he rounded the corner into the surgical ICU, his heart racing, his chest tight.

She was there.

Still alive.

Still with him.

He advanced towards her room and Dr. Bailey stepped in front of him, "She's going to be okay. Before you go in there, just know that she's going to be okay."

"What happened?" he questioned, looking over Bailey's short stature.

She was intubated again. Again, a machine was breathing for her.

Again, he'd go without hearing her voice.

"She just decompensated...her energy was gone. She's got some minor burns to her chest from the paddles, and we have her pretty sedated."

Burke nodded, "She'll get rest."

"That means not arguing with her whenever she tells you to rest yourself. It means taking care of yourself, because if you don't take care of you, you can't take care of her. Understood?"

"Whatever." he pushed past her, falling into the chair next to her bed.

He grasped her hand, still very warm to the touch and bent to kiss it, "I'm here, Cristina. I rested, and now I'm here."

Bailey stepped into the room and watched him carefully as he laid his head on her bed, her hand in his, silently overcome by a storm of emotions that had been brewing in him for the past weeks, grief being the emotion that won in the tug of war with his composure

She tried her best to soothe him as he wept silently, her hand on his shoulder, "You have to stay positive for her. You have to."

He closed his eyes tight, caressing her hand in his, "Do you have any idea what all of this means, Dr. Bailey...any idea?"

Bailey stood back, her hands coming to rest on her waist, "I have some idea."

"She'll never be the same after this. Her life is turned upside down, and she's so stubborn, so headstrong. She'll never settle for anything else."

"She wouldn't be settling for you."

"But she'd never settle for a different specialty. Maybe that's why we keep having setbacks...if she can't overcome all of this, and short of a miracle come back to the level of functioning she was at before, she'll never..."

"Don't say it. Not here. Not in front of her." Bailey warned in a quiet voice.

"Unconsciously, I think that's why we have our setbacks. She wouldn't want to live. She'd have no reason to." he sighed.

"She has you, you just have to quit this brooding thing that you're doin'. She has you, and that's reason to live for her." Bailey assured him.

Her pager went off and she glanced down at it, "Oh, that's a 911. I have to go."

He nodded, looking up to her as she dashed from the room.

He looked back to Cristina, her body battered and broken from resuscitation measures, the accident, surgery and infection Her spirit hidden beneath the tubes and hums of a ventilator and heart monitors, IV pumps and medication lines.

How he longed to see this over, to see her walking down the halls of Seattle Grace in her powder blue scrubs, that cocky and driven look painted on her face as she stalked around in search of another great surgery.

Or to see her in a surgical mask, her almond eyes exposed, so expressive, so vulnerable only to him.

His thumb slid across the top of her hand and back unconsciously as he tried to remember what exactly they'd done that day of the accident.

He'd remembered getting off work at the same time, and saying that they'd meet at the apartment so they could go to dinner to celebrate their anniversary together.

She'd accused him of being cheesy and goofy.

But he could also see excitement in her eyes.

He'd made it all the way to the flower shop to get her flowers, to carry out that cheesy image, when she called.

Her clip had broken and she needed a new one. She was so insistent about going with him.

So, falling to her demands, he turned the car around and drove all the way back home to pick her up so they could go buy her a clip.

'You don't need one.' he told her, running a hand through her black curls that he cherished so much.

'Is it your hair? Do you have to deal with it?' she argued, a sly grin on her face.

They joked back and forth like this for a few minutes. One of the rare moments in their relationship where they were comfortable.

Where they could torment each other like best friends and lovers do.

And then he started talking about marriage, reminding her that they'd been together for a couple years now, and that they'd been through a lot, and that they would make it.

He remembered seeing how slightly uncomfortable she was, and wondered if she'd ever grow out of it.

Then there was a deafening roar and shards of glass seemed to implode into the car, glittering rain mixing with it as it fell upon him and Cristina.

She was thrown into his side, he remembered how she just lay there limp, her color quickly fading from her body.

Her spirit leaving this Earth.

He drug her from the car, even though everything he'd ever learned in medical school said not to.

The medication infusion pump interrupted his thought processes.

He looked to her again, placing another kiss on her hand and letting out a deep sigh, "I'm here for you, Cristina."

A/N: Got the second study guide done. Here's my prize. :)


	15. Chapter 15

Burke glanced into Cristina's room as he rounded the corner and saw a flash of red hair over her bed. He slipped quietly into the room and Addison stood straight from her position over Cristina's bed and faked a smile, "Hey...did you get some sleep?"

"If you can call it that."

"Well, she's doing okay...her vital signs are stable and everything." There was concern in Addison's tone and she laid her hand over Burke's. "She's going to pull through this. She's strong."

"That's what I've been told."

His voice was emotionless. His heart was empty.

The past four days had been hard on him. He rested like he had promised Bailey, promised her, and he'd spent the rest of his time with her, at her bedside, holding her hand, reminding her that he was still there.

"Page me if you need me later. I'm on call tonight, so I'll probably stick around in the hospital." Addison mumbled, and left the room.

He glanced at the Servo to see if she was breathing on her own yet, but the red numbers glared at him, telling him that she was still completely dependent upon the ventilator.

She was gone.

"Dammit." he cursed under his breath, falling into his chair and taking her hand in his.

There were cards and well wishes spread throughout her room.

Izzie had even brought by a suture pack, thinking that maybe it'd help her come around, but there was nothing.

She was truly gone.

He silently thanked God that there was no way that he could consent to remove her from life support since they were only living together and not married, because he knew in his heart, if it were his choice, that she wouldn't want to live like this.

And he would have to honor those wishes.

The radiology tech rolled the massive X-Ray machine into his room and nodded. He had become a common fixture in the morning, and he knew that once he saw him, it would only be about another 45 minutes before the doctors would round, do their physical, fake hope and disappear again.

It had become clock work.

He helped the tech to position the films under her chest, and stood to the side as he captured the films.

Her lungs had improved a great deal, over the past couple of days, and there wasn't any reason for her to be in this comatose state.

They'd weaned her off the analgesics slowly, they'd weaned her off of the paralytics, all at his request.

The radiology tech rolled the machine out of the room and looked back at Cristina, then to Burke with sadness in his eyes. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Can you raise the dead?" he questioned, pain in his eyes.

"She's not dead, you fool." Bailey sighed from the doorway.

Burke looked up to see her and nodded, "You're right. She does have a heartbeat. I guess it counts for something." his answer was bitter, sarcastic.

She looked at the machine sitting outside the door with a heavy heart and wished that she could just get him out of the room for 15 minutes to do what she needed to do.

But she knew there was no way.

"Preston..." she began, her voice soft, steady.

"It's the fifth day." he interrupted. "You have to test for brain death."

Bailey nodded slowly, advancing into the room with the EEG. "Why don't you go get some coffee?"

"I want to be here."

She began to protest, but thought better of it, "Okay." and she began setting up the EEG.

"Has anyone reached her mother yet? It's been nearly 3 weeks, and she's the only one who can..." his voice trailed off.

"Still no response."

He closed his eyes and let out a long exhale, "She's never cared for her mother anyway." he rationalized to himself.

Bailey clicked in some information on the small computer, and her heart ached as she began the test. She scanned the screen quietly, feeling as if she was losing one of her own.

Burke turned his head away from the monitor. He didn't want to see the results.

He knew in his heart what they were.

"Well, I'll be a son of a gun.." Bailey muttered under her breath.

"What?" he asked flatly, afraid to feel any hope from her statement.

"Cristina Yang, you need to quit this and wake your butt up, girl. This is not a nap time, and you've got this man worried to death." she chided her as she pulled the electrodes from her forehead.

"Are you going to answer me?"

"Are you deaf? I just told her to wake up."

"She's not..."

"No. She's not." Bailey smiled at him, her heart and spirits lifted.

A weak smile spread across his face, "Good. That's good."

"I told you she's stubborn. She's probably milking it for all it's worth." she chuckled to herself, finding a new way to make light of the situation. "We'll be back around in about 30 minutes. Go get yourself a cup of coffee, you look like crap."

He let a smile slip across his lips and stood from his chair, "Don't round without me."

"And face the wrath of boyfriend Burke? I don't feel like dealing with your crap today. I have three surgeries and too much to take care of as it is." she muttered disappearing from the doorway.

He bent over her bed and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "I love you." he whispered in her ear, and exited the room to get coffee.

Walking through the hospital was always an uncomfortable experience anymore, many times people would ask him how Cristina was doing, or how he was holding up to his face.

But then there were the whispers.

Whispers that they couldn't believe that 'the' Preston Burke was taking this much time off of work, whispers that he'd totally lost it.

Whispers about him dating a corpse.

Those were the whispers that hurt the worst.

He arrived at the coffee stand and bit his lip to find himself facing Meredith.

"Burke." she mumbled, taking her coffee from the cashier, "I was just coming to see her."

"You can't. Not right now."

"I haven't seen her since she was moved back to the ICU." she protested setting the coffee down on the counter and glaring at him. "She forgave me in her own Cristina way."

"She may have." he spat at her, taking the cup of coffee being handed to him, "But I haven't, and she can't tell me to get over it right now."

"Can't you accept that I'm sorry, that it wasn't something intentional, that I'm paying my penchant?" she argued, following him away from the cart.

"A fine, no matter how large, isn't large enough for what you've done to her. Do you realize that if and when she wakes up, she's never going to be the same? You've taken a lot away from her. You've essentially ruined everything she was and everything she could have been. Don't you understand that?" he snapped.

His respirations had increased and tension began to seep through his muscles as he glared at the woman who shouldered the responsibility for everything that had happened to them.

"How have I ruined her? I mean, yeah, obviously she's sick, but she'll get better, she'll come back to work, and she'll be fine."

"You're a doctor for Christ's sake. Do you know what the likelihood is that she'll ever be able to set foot into an OR ever again? Do you? Or have you even cared to think of that?"

Meredith fell silent.

Burke glared at her with intense eyes, "That's what I thought."

She turned away from him and walked back towards the elevator, using every bit of her will power not to cry in front of him.

She would not let him break her down.

He walked back into the ICU, a new perspective on the day.

For the first time in four days, there was a glimmer of hope within him.

"She looks horrible." he heard a familiar voice comment from her room.

It couldn't be.

He walked into her room and found his mother and father standing over her bed, "Mama?"

A/N: I lost the bet and somebody wanted Momma and Papa Burke. Here they are.

Here's to hoping I don't slaughter them.


	16. Chapter 16

He had to blink a few times, he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

His momma was talking to Cristina, her hand resting on her head, and talking to her.

She looked up to him and frowned, "I can't believe that you didn't call me, Preston. I'm really disappointed in you."

"I just figured..." his voice trailed off.

What? That his mother wouldn't care if the woman he loved could die? That his mother would sing praises of the recent events because she didn't care for Cristina.

"You figured what? That I hold so much disdain for this girl that I wouldn't come to support you?"

He swallowed hard. The last person he wanted to irritate was his mother, "Well...no. I've just been...preoccupied."

"I know, I've heard all about your antics, walking around here like you own the place, not taking care of yourself, being the antithesis of who you are. I'm here to make sure that stops." she replied, her hand still resting on Cristina's head.

He raised an eyebrow at her, "Oh?"

"Yes, oh. You're going to go home and sleep. You're not staying in this hospital anymore, I won't have it. While you're gone, I can sit with her."

"Mama..." he began.

"Don't mama me. What? You don't trust me? Do you think I'm going to do something to her? I don't think she can get much worse than she is." she frowned.

"I just woke up...I'm not ready to leave yet." he protested.

She looked down to Cristina and nodded, "You can go home in a few hours. You can stay for now, your father and I need to get checked into the hotel anyway."

He looked up to his mother amazed at her gesture.

It was not often that she dropped a grudge, even in death or the face of.

And Cristina had stolen her baby's heart, therefore inflicting a large grudge upon herself.

"How long are you staying?" he asked, his voice low.

"As long as it takes for her to come around, I suppose." she replied, "However long that may be."

His dad remained silent through all of this, observing Cristina's form in the bed, he saw the exhaustion and sadness in his son, and felt it within himself.

The last thing he'd ever told her was to hang in there.

How ironic that it would be the exact same thing he said to her upon meeting her again.

"You look tired, son. Why don't you come with me for a walk. We can talk, and you can tell me exactly what happened."

Burke looked to his mother, question in his eyes.

"She'll be fine with me." she assured.

He leaned over as he had come to do every time he left her, kissed her on the forehead and whispered an I love you in her ear.

He'd come to say it quite freely these days, as he hadn't said it often before.

As if those three words could bring her around.

The two men left the room and Jane looked down to Cristina, a smile settled upon her face, "I know that we don't necessarily like each other, Cristina." she mumbled, "But Preston loves you...and you have to come around for him, because I couldn't bear to see my baby's heart broken."

She sat in the chair beside the bed, and thought for a second as to what she could say, and with a chuckle she added in a dry voice, "Besides, the sooner you get better, the sooner I leave."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Donald Burke studied his son closely as they stood on the catwalk of the hospital, looking down on the many families waiting to hear word about their loved ones.

His son had changed so much since the last time he'd seen him.

The Preston Burke he'd known had always been a solemn man as he was now, but he'd also been an egotistical and cocky young man who knew exactly what he wanted and how he was going to get it.

There was nothing that could ever stop him from getting it either.

But the man that stood before him now was different.

He was quiet, a storm of anger, frustration and exhaustion brewing in his expressive eyes. His body was tense and rigid, worn by sleepless nights and restless days.

And his father knew for the first time in his life that Preston Burke wanted something that he had no control over whether or not he was going to get it.

"You're quiet." he made a random observation, hoping his son would open up to him.

"I'm always quiet, dad." he replied, his voice low.

"Are you ready to tell me what happened?" he questioned his son, gazing down at a family that had come together in a heap of tears.

Somebody had lost their loved one.

Burke turned away from the family, his heart aching for them.

It must've been a million times that he'd informed somebody that their family member didn't make it through a surgery, or through an accident.

He'd always been on the other side of that line.

Now he truly understood the pain that they felt.

What it was like to hang on to a physician's every word.

"I cannot." he finally replied.

"Okay...then tell me how you're doing."

"I'm existing."

"That's a start." he nodded, placing his hand on his son's shoulder, "Existing is a start."

"It's all I can do. Every time, dad...every time I hope, something happens. Every time I start to think that we can move on, that we can leave this hospital and go home, something happens." he sighed, looking down at the shining tiled floors.

"You've got to stop living for the future, son."

"If I don't live for the future, what have I got to look forward to? Sitting in a hospital room all day, watching the woman that I've given my heart to waste away?"

"You've got to stop feeling sorry for yourself, too. You're here for her, now. And as for sitting here and waiting for the future, try being thankful for the little things everyday. A stable heart rate, a discontinued med. Something." he pressed, "It doesn't have to be about going home. It's about getting better."

"Steps."

"Hmm?" Donald raised his eyebrow much as his own son did when he questioned things.

"She said steps...before she got worse. Again."

"Sounds like a wise girl. You should listen to her." he chuckled, "But then again, you've always been stubborn just like your mother."

Burke let a smile spread across his face, then a small amount of laughter came from within him, and he shook his head.

"What's so funny, son?"

"I was just thinking...don't tell Cristina that I'm like mom. She may decide she doesn't want a part of that." he chuckled.

Donald laughed, "That may be very true...why don't we see if she's decided to snap out of it. Five minutes with your mother ought to do it for her. I know it would me."

As the two reached the doors to the surgical ICU, Jane exited, "Preston, I was just coming to find you...", there was alarm in her voice.

"Mama...what's wrong with Cristina?"

A/N: Okay, I'm done for tonight. I've lost count of how many chapters that was, but I think it's enough. I really hope you guys like this story. It's kinda my baby. :)


	17. Chapter 17

"Preston, calm down." Jane Burke stood next to her son, applying a firm grip to his forearm.

"I'm calm." he replied, his jaw so tight and so tense the words could barely escape.

Jane knew differently, she grabbed her son's hand and led him away from the doors of the SICU, "Let's go wait downstairs."

"I always wait in her room at least." he argued.

Jane shook her head, "Well, the three of us aren't going to wait there today. We're going to wait downstairs with everybody else."

"Can you at least tell me what's wrong?" he wanted to pull his arm away from her hand, but thought better of it.

"They're taking her to the CT Scanner, is what I believe he said, and they're going to go and do surgery. Dr. Shepard said he'd be downstairs to speak with us after they get the images they want."

"Dr. Shepard." Donald stopped for a moment, "He's the one who did your shoulder surgery, right?"

"Yeah."

"He's good. He can fix whatever's wrong with her."

"Yeah." Burke repeated, his eyes falling upon the lobby beneath them.

"Then she'll be fine."

"Yeah."

Jane grabbed her son's hand and pulled him towards the stairway, "Let's go sit down."

Burke merely nodded and let his mother lead him down the stairs and into a chair in the corner. "Why is that we have to sit down here again?"

"Look around, son." Donald began.

There were families surrounding them, all who had no idea what kind of condition their loved ones were in.

Who had no idea that their loved ones had died.

Or who had no idea that their loved ones had lived.

The families spoke quietly amongst each other, sometimes laughing sometimes crying.

But there was a common denominator amongst them, something that Burke had lost in the past weeks.

They all had hope.

He understood now, why his parents had brought him down here to wait.

In Cristina's room, he was reminded of the bad things, the heart monitors, the oxygen, the tubes, the code cart intentionally in a new location outside of her door. There was little hope for him in that room, more bad memories than good.

Here, he could have just a minute amount of hope without the occlusion of negativity enclosing on his thoughts.

He hung his head, his forearms coming to rest on his legs, "Thank you." he mumbled.

"Burke, Mr. and Mrs. Burke, hello." Derek stood over them, his eyes bright. "I have some fairly good news."

Burke looked up at him in question, "Yeah?"

"Her dependence upon the vent, and probably the reason she's still not waking up for us is because her intracranial pressure was increased, the hematoma on her medulla hadn't completely dissolved, in fact, it kinda dispersed just a minute amount of blood into her brain, no more than 5 mLs, but the good news is, I can fix it. I'll go in through the original incision, apply suction, and check things out. I may not even have to put in a new drain."

"That's why her respiratory function was depressed." Burke nodded. "You pulled the drain too soon."

Shepard was taken slightly aback, at his statement, somewhat accusatory, and his answer became defensive, "Of course not. Sometimes, these things just happen, and it had nothing to do with me."

Shepard wasn't only talking about the drain this time.

"These things just happen?" Burke pressed, becoming upset with him.

Jane looked at her son and saw him tense up once again, and laid her hand on his shoulder, "Let it go, Preston."

"Go fix it." he muttered and looked to him, threat in his eyes.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Derek worked quickly and tediously, Izzie standing over his shoulder, "It's amazing how not even a tablespoon of blood can do this to somebody...she's going to get better, right?"

"It is." he replied, observing for any more bleeding. "It was all old blood. She doesn't even need a drain."

"Y'know...I took her a suture packet, thinking it would bring her around. Just something from the OR to bring her around. It was so stupid. I didn't even think about..."

"It was a gesture, Izzie, and a good one." Shepard interrupted, beginning his work about closing.

She nodded, "Should I follow her to recovery?"

"No, I want to assess her post-operatively. I need you to prep our next patient in 4888...actually, I'll be done here in about 15 minutes, why don't you go ahead and go prep that patient so that I can spend a few minutes post-op with Cristina and then get in on the next surgery, then we'll call it an early night." he spoke, still working on meticulously suturing her scalp around her hairline to prevent major scarring where hair might never grow back.

Izzie nodded, "Tell me if she's okay?"

"Of course."

And she was gone.

He finished his work and watched from the scrub room as they wheeled her towards the post-op area.

He wanted so badly to corner Burke and explain to him that this was not his fault, that Cristina's complications, the accident, Meredith was not of his doing, but something tugged at his conscious.

He knew that she was drunk. He could've at least called her a cab.

But she'd gotten so irrational, and he was so angry at Addison for being pregnant, and Mark for leaving her after she'd gotten pregnant, and angry with himself for having to take care of Addison before Meredith. Even if they had been apart for 2 years, she was still his wife, and always would be.

Everything clouded his judgement in his moment, and he just left.

He took a seat in the recovery room next to Cristina, looking at the Servo for her numbers as the anesthetic wore off.

She was already breathing over the ventilator.

He looked down to see if she was trying to wake up yet, but she still slept soundly, the anesthetic not completely worn off.

The numbers were good enough for him, "O'Malley!" he called over, standing from the chair.

George stumbled over to him, 3 charts in hand, "Dr. Shepard?"

"Go set your charts down. When she's been over the vent for 15 minutes, I want you to extubate and take her back to the SICU, then notify Dr. Burke that she's out of the OR. Do not tell her that she's been extubated. I want him to see that for himself." he ordered him in an even tone, trying to mask his exhilaration.

George nodded, a smile on his face, "So, she's better?"

"She's better, Dr. O'Malley."

A/N: Awwwww...aren't you guys happy? I am. I'll tell you a secret. I nearly killed her. Nearly. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. :)


	18. Chapter 18

Jane Burke was the first one to make it back to the SICU after Cristina's surgery, opting to make Preston and Donald wait in the waiting room so she could observe the damage for herself first hand, before subjecting her son to the possible pain he may experience seeing the woman he loved so sick.

But she also wanted to see her because she had things to say.

As she entered the room, her gaze fell upon Cristina, who's eyes were open and hazed over, probably from anesthetic, and she had no tubes in her throat, only a nasal cannula providing supplemental oxygen.

She watched quietly from the doorway, as Cristina brought her hand to her face and pulled absently at the cannula, adjusting it, and then letting her hand fall back to her lap.

There was disappointment in her face.

'She probably wants to know where he is.' Jane thought for just a moment, and considered leaving and letting Preston come back instead.

But then she changed her mind.

"Cristina." she announced from the door, drawing Cristina's tired eyes from the wall to herself.

The look on her face was one of astonishment and disappointment twisted into fake pleasant surprise.

But she didn't speak.

"Don't look so stunned to see me." she responded to the stare in a bland tone, "Do you honestly think that I wouldn't be here for my Preston, no matter what the circumstances?" she questioned her.

Cristina wished in that moment that she could fake sleep, or a seizure, or a code in that moment, just anything to make the woman go away.

Where was Burke?

Why wasn't he here to save her?

"I wanted to talk to you when you didn't have the opportunity to talk back, actually...that's why I'm here." Jane began to explain, "See, I have this theory that my son is silly and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with you...and that you don't want to because of whatever fear of intimacy that you may or may not have."

Cristina let out a sigh, "..should be glad...my voice...", she tried to croak out in anger.

"Now don't waste your voice." Jane interrupted her sad excuse for whispers, "But I also know things that people haven't explained to you, and Preston isn't here to stop me from explaining those things to you. Things that you need to know that he can't bring himself to tell you, and since I'm the 'wicked mother-in-law' or will be one day, I get to have that pleasure."

Cristina pressed her lips together, closing her eyes and nodded.

Ready to hear what fate had been sealed for her.

"Dr. Shepard has talked to me in private, and with the damage that your body has been through with the accident, and with the surgeries...the likelihood of you being a surgeon is nearly non-existent. Most people wouldn't be that devastated, because they lived, but you...I've heard about you. So I'm telling you now, so that you can reprioritize your life...and I am telling you, that life needs to include my son, Cristina." She continued in a matter of fact voice.

Jane Burke did not believe in false reassurances or being gentle, as she presented the facts to Cristina.

And she knew that Cristina would appreciate it.

"He loves you. And I cannot tell you why, as you're the polar opposite of the girls he's been with. But he loves you, and I'm not going to interfere with that until you force me to. This first step is yours, Cristina...but you need to consider the options. A life of misery trying to attain the unattainable, or a life with someone who cares for you more than life itself."

Cristina looked up at the ceiling pondering the future.

Jane's gaze fell on Cristina as a tear silently slid from her eyes, and she bit her lip, "I'll go get Preston." she mumbled, and left Cristina to think.

A life without surgery, a life without the one thing she'd worked so hard for her entire life.

Burke was told that with the gunshot, the wound, he'd probably never work again, but he was fixed.

It got better

He could still operate.

But in the process of the recovery, their relationship had suffered several blows that took weeks for them to move past.

Did she really want to put their love at jeopardy like that again?

A life without surgery, or a life without Burke.

There was no choice for her.

A/N: Finals are over. Be happy. ;)


	19. Chapter 19

Preston Burke was never a man of many words, but that had all changed when Cristina Yang entered his life.

He found himself stumbling through sentences, clearing his throat in favor of saying the word 'um' because there were no words, and losing syllables when he was trying to get his point across.

She had indeed turned his world upside down, and broke his shell.

The same way that he'd battled for so long to tear hers down.

He was once again without words as he sat at her bedside, silently watching her as her gaze lingered on anything but him.

She absently picked at the blanket, then began to fidget with the sheets, then the tape over her peripheral line.

Anything to avoid his eyes, because she knew when she looked into his eyes, knowing what she knew, that she would become upset, and she wasn't ready to be upset.

She wasn't ready to feel anger or frustration or exhiliration, or anything else that may come with resigning to the fact that the most she'd ever be was...

She pushed the thought out of her head.

"Cristina, you can look at me." he finally sighed in frustration, grabbing her hand. "If you could get up and walk out of this room, I think you would've done it."

He bit his lip, awaiting her response.

This isn't exactly how he'd pictured the first time he'd get to talk to her after everything they'd been through in the past few days.

Of course, he didn't expect to exchange 'I love yous' either, that just wasn't Cristina.

But he expected more than just seeing her stare at the wall.

"Cristina."

She finally sighed, trying to focus on anything other than the news that Jane had delivered to her just an hour ago, and that included trying her best not to focus on him.

She had never counted on a life with just him and no surgery.

"Cristina." he repeated, his grip on her hand tightening.

She tuned to face him, her eyes empty.

"There you are." he mumbled, a smile slowly spreading on his lips.

She let out a sigh and looked back away from him again. "I'm here." she mumbled, her voice weak, but distance in her tone.

He pressed a kiss to her hand, and searched in his heart for something to say to her, something to let her know that everything was going to be okay.

Preston Burke had never cursed his mother's existence so long as he had existed, but in this moment, he was very upset with his 'momma' for telling Cristina the implications of what lies ahead.

She wasn't ready to have her spirit broken along with her body, nor was she ready to accept what the future held for her.

He should've been there to protect her.

To stop his mother from her toils, whatever they may be.

"Cristina..." he trailed off, saying her name for the thirtieth time in 10 minutes, unable to think of anything else to say.

"Burke." she replied softly.

"I'm sorry...about what my momma told you. You didn't need to know, not like that." His voice was gentle and soft, quivering with trepidation and insecurity, "It's not something that's for sure...you could be fine."

They both knew differently.

They both knew that there definitely was way too much damage, and that her body wouldn't be able to handle the stressors of working 48 hour shifts for months at the very least, let alone being able to hold her hands steady long enough to handle a scalpel or suture needle.

They both knew that her future would be no more than consultations and physical assessments and paper work.

A desk doctor.

"I'm fine." she mumbled, her voice barely audible and cracking.

The words would unrecognizable to most, except for the fact that Burke knew they were her standard reply that she gave when she was hurting, when the facts of life became too unbearable for her to come up with anything witty or reassuring to say.

And for the first time in his life, he allowed her to say that she was fine and just accepted it, unmoving, silent.

Just watching her.

His heart ached for her, his lips fighting for something to say to reassure her, to let her know that he could be enough for her, if she'd just let him.

That his love could fill the void that the loss of her career had left.

But even he wasn't sure it could be enough.

A/N: Awwwww...I'm back and more dark and depressing than ever. Thanks for sticking with me guys. :)


	20. Chapter 20

Cristina laid silently in her bed, contemplating millions of thoughts racing through her head, paying no attention to the man sitting next to her bed waiting for her to finally stop being quiet and start speaking.

It had been two days since she'd had the endotracheal tube pulled from her throat, and at least 18 hours since her voice had gotten strong enough to actually carry out a converastion.

But she was not talking, she had things to think about.

Reasons to be upset.

She had chose to spend the rest of her life with Burke before she relapsed just a couple weeks earlier, but this was also before she knew that she'd never be able to set foot into an OR again as a surgeon.

She would not be reduced to a scrub nurse or a desk doctor, or anything less than what she had always meant to be.

But at the cost of the man she loved?

She looked do him, his eyes weary and tired, a look of disdain and insecurity twisting his normally placid features into one of concern for her.

Then she looked away again.

She couldn't bear the thought of hurting him.

Or losing him.

She let out a long exhale, her eyes stinging with frustration. Nobody should ever have to make a choice like this, especially her.

"Preston, honey..." Jane Burke smiled from the door, Donald by her side.

"Momma, Daddy." he nodded, standing to stretch.

"Why don't we go get some coffee, Preston?" Donald offered, taking note of his apparent exhaustion. "Jane can stay with Cristina."

Cristina shot Burke a look, the first one she'd granted him all day and he smiled back at her, a look of, 'you earned this yourself', "Sure, let's get some coffee."

He bent over her bed and kissed her on the forehead, "I'll be back in...a while." he mumbled into her ear and followed his father out of the room.

Cristina looked to Jane, who had an unreadable expression across her face and she sighed, "Mrs. Burke." she offered in a low voice.

"You'll talk to me, but you won't talk to Preston?" she questioned, her voice obviously irritated.

"I talk to him."

"You've just said more words to me in the past 10 minutes, than you have to him in the past 10 hours." she pointed out.

"Then I'll be more than happy to stop talking." Cristina muttered low, looking away from the woman.

There were just too many things on her mind right now.

Jane Burke walked around to the other side of the bed so Cristina would have to look at her and frowned, "Is there something wrong with the man I raised that he's not to your liking? Is there something wrong with him that you can't just quit being stubborn for 10 minutes and give yourself to him completely? Is there, because if there is, you need to let him now so he can move on with his life." she began to lecture her.

Cristina sat up a little in her bed, "Excuse me?"

"You've been giving him the silent treatment because I told you that you couldn't be a doctor anymore. You're treating him like he's just there because he has to be, well I assure you Cristina, he doesn't _have_ to be here. He chooses to. And if you don't start acting like the woman he loves, and a woman who appreciates him, then I recommend that you get used to being alone." she continued, her hands placed firmly on her hips, and her eyes burning with fury.

"If he wants to leave, he can leave. I'm fine by myself." Cristina muttered, her eyes falling to her lap, and her heart sinking in her chest.

She regretted the comment the second she'd made it.

Jane picked up on it, and lowered herself into the chair next to the bed, "What are you afraid of?" she sighed. "Haven't you two been together long enough for you to realize that my Preston isn't going to give up on you, no matter how much of a persistent pain in the side you can be?"

"Shouldn't you be convincing him to give up on me?" she retorted, crossing her arms.

"Shouldn't you be dedicated to marrying my son just to make me miserable for the rest of my long, long life?" Jane shot back.

Cristina allowed a small smile to creep across her lips, but quickly replaced it with a scowl, "I don't know why you're getting into this anyway. Burke can handle his own thing."

"Not you. You drive him crazy." she bit her lip, "You confuse him. Just when he thinks that everything will be fine, you flip. You change your mind. You make him unsure...can't you see that he loves you, Cristina?"

"I know he does."

"Can't you see that he'd do anything to make you happy?" Jane continued to question.

"Yeah."

"Can't you see is that the only thing he wants is for you to say that you'll let him for the rest of your lives?" She let out an exasperated sigh.

Cristina was silent for a moment, then looked to Jane, her lips pursed together, "I was going to spend the rest of my life with him...I wasn't scared to, because I was going to be a surgeon. I wasn't going to be home all the time; the hours would be erratic, our schedules would be different, we wouldn't be together every waking moment of every single day, that way I couldn't...anyway, things have changed. I'm not going to be a surgeon anymore. I can't be a surgeon anymore, and I can't be his wi-.." her voice trailed off.

Jane stood from the chair, "Fine. You want to be alone? Forever?"

Cristina didn't reply.

She didn't want to be alone, but she didn't say anything.

Burke would come back, she knew that he would.

Jane shook her head, "You have the most amazing man in the world hanging on to your every breath, every movement, every part of your being. Why can't you hold onto him?"

With that she was gone.

Cristina lay in bed staring at the door to her room, waiting for Burke's return, but he did not come back.

Minutes passed by slowly. Then an hour, then two.

And she pulled her covers up close to her face, her eyes stinging with tears.

This was for the best, if he didn't come back, she told herself, dabbing at a tear with the back of her hand.

She couldn't operate anymore, and she'd never make a good wife. The whole cooking and cleaning thing wasn't her deal, and she wasn't going to disappoint the man she loved.

She pulled the blankets up to cover her face as she let a few more tears fall in sadness, mourning for what she'd already given up.

Maybe this would be for the best.

A/N: I'm sorry. No happy stuff yet. Yet. :)


	21. Chapter 21

Burke laid in the darkened on-call room of the hospital that practically owned him, staring at the bottom of the bunk above him.

He often found himself sleeping in this particular bunk when he couldn't be with her, when he had to 'rest', because it was the bunk where they found each other.

It was the bunk that he laid in alone after she'd scurried off immediately following their first encounter and swore to himself that he'd be able to kiss her enchanting lips and take in her intoxicating skin any day that would want to.

But now, he wasn't sure what he'd wanted.

He'd become as indecisive as her.

His mind followed the coils of the bunk bed, all linked with each other, all connected, not disjointed like his thoughts.

His heart was overcome by sadness, his body ached to be with her, but his mind.

His mind was just as complicated as hers.

He used to teach the interns lessons by torturing them.

Those interns always ended up doing the worst in the program, save for a select few that excelled and became stars in their own fields.

Then his mind wondered to Cristina working in a different field.

There was no way that she could be a surgeon.

And she'd never do OB. She'd scare the mothers into a precipitious labor and delivery just to get rid of her.

NICU wasn't right. She wasn't the cuddly baby type.

That brought his thoughts to the baby.

She could've told him about the baby, he would've never broke it off with her.

Maybe that's what her issue was. Maybe that's why she was being the way she was now. She was testing him to see if he was going to leave her, if this 'future' thing would really stay intact.

He let out a long exhale and looked at the clock, it had been 6 hours since he'd been in her room, not counting when she was sleeping.

The errant thought that she didn't even care had run through his mind and he continued to study the bottom of the bunk in front of him until the door of the call room flew open to interrupt his flight of ideas.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Meredith stepped into Cristina's darkened room and heard stifled sobs from under the blanket of which she lay and shook her head.

Cristina seemed ever the masochist; too stubborn to tell him she was sorry, too much pride to admit that she wasn't going to be the best surgeon, and too afraid of her feelings to admit that she could be happy just being Burke's wife.

She sat on the edge of Cristina's bed softly, and laid a hand against her shoulder.

"Debbie..." she heard a small groan from under the bed, "I'm not crying, I told you...and I don't need any meds. Just let me be."

"I'm glad you don't need meds, because I don't have any to give." Meredith sighed, pulling the blanket back.

Cristina looked her straight in the face, and there was rage in her eyes, "You are the last person that I want to see right now."

She pulled the blanket back up over her face and Meredith felt as if she'd been slapped.

"You forgave me. Do you not remember the cheesy Cristina, 'Oh, I'm living in the moment.' crap you fed me just a couple weeks ago?"

"I lied."

"No you didn't." Meredith pulled the blanket back down and sat on the edge of it, observing Cristina's tear streaked face. "So you can't be a surgeon- so what. That just means the rest of the interns have a chance."

"Not funny."

"And y'know what, you can be home more often. You could feasibly have a husband and children and not completely screw them up from working all the time." Meredith continued, pressing her luck.

Cristina looked at her, dampened black curls falling from her face, "Since when have I been the one who wanted to get married and have children?" she asked dryly. "Since when has that been my dream? Let me refresh you of my dream; my dream was to be the Chief resident, then the Chief of surgery and to have everyone in the world think of my name before anybody else's when it came to pioneers in Cardiothoracic surgery."

"And I'm oh so sure that Burke wasn't in that dream, that's why you've been living with the man for two years, right?"

Cristina opened her mouth in protest then closed it.

She was right.

Burke had always been in those fantasies that she'd piece together in the call-room late at night when she should be sleeping, but was too excited awaiting the arrival of another patient.

As a matter of fact, she couldn't think of one where he hadn't been a part of the fantasy.

Meredith grinned at her best friend, "See? I was so right."

"Whatever." Cristina sighed.

"Yeah, whatever." Meredith repeated, laying a hand on her shoulder, "He's pretty wounded y'know."

"Who?"

"Burke." Meredith answered, then continued, "His girlfriend has been in a comatose state for a week, has emergency brain surgery again, lives and gets extubated, and then gives him the silent treatment."

Cristina sniffed, "He wouldn't expect any less from me."

"You told him you were going to spend the rest of your life with him before all of these other complications." she chided. "I think he expected much more."

"Whatever...how the hell do you know what I told him anyway? Have you been stalking us?"

Meredith allowed a small smile to creep across her lips, "I pulled a trick from your book."

"Oh?" Cristina's curiousity was piqued.

"I found him in the call room and made a bet with him."

"And he didn't kick your ass?"

"He told me that he didn't hit women." Meredith joked.

"And the bet?" Cristina sighed.

"I bet him that I'd get you talking and get you to stop ignoring him and get you thinking about possibilities for the future instead of moping in your bed and making him feel worthless." Meredith rambled.

"The prize?"

"He'll forgive me." she shrugged.

"Burke would forgive you if I came around? Seriously. I figured it'd take more than that, y'know something like, 'She'll be able to operate after 2 months out and it'll be as if nothing ever happened.'" Cristina guessed quietly.

"That's the part you're not seeing, Cristina...you're worth so much to him that he's willing to set aside his grudges...because he does have every right in the world to hate me...anyway, he's willing to set aside those grudges for you. He wants to be with you. That's all he wants." Meredith rambled, "You're so damn blind sometimes."

"So that's the bet." Cristina was unsure of what else there was to be said.

Her heart began to ache for Burke to be the one in here telling her this, and she was reminded of a time not so long ago where he must've felt the same way.

Left alone and in a bed, his best friend the one coming to see him and keep him company.

Then she felt guilt.

Guilt for making him sit here in silence after him being by her side non-stop for almost a week, doing nothing but staring at her imitation of a vegetable.

"Well...there was one other part to the bet." Meredith suddenly interceded.

"And that is what?" Cristina questioned quietly.

"He said if I could get you so out of the hole that you'll actually kiss him and tell him those three words that you've told him all of 3 times since you've been together, and one doesn't count since you're sleeping, that I could visit whenever I want to." Meredith grinned quietly. "Did I mention that I'm not even beginning to count on that one?"

"You're funny." Cristina dryly replied.

"I thought so." she shrugged.

Meredith stood from the bed, and leaned over to give her friend a semi-hug, "Yes, I'm touching you and you can get over it."

Cristina took in a sharp breath and grabbed her friend's arm, "Don't go yet, Mer...I have to think."

Meredith was taken aback for a second and shook her head gently, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "Okay. I'll stay."

"Thank you." Cristina mumbled, "I can't do this alone...and I can't..."

"You can't do it alone.

Cristina nodded and closed her eyes, silently beginning to flip through different medical specialties in her head, her heart aching and sad, her body exhausted and her mind trying to keep it all together.

Sacrifices had to be made.

A/N: Here's another chapter, and I have more later, but for now I want to watch a movie. :) Thanks for all the feedback guys, I love you:D


	22. Chapter 22

Burke slowly made his way around the corner to Cristina's room, and his heart stopped at the sound of something he'd heard in a long time.

Cristina laughing.

He let a smile creep across his lips as he stepped into the room finding her smiling and talking to Meredith.

At least someone could make her happy.

"No, no...I could go into nursing. Yeah, I could be a nurse on the surgical unit, and just piss Debbie and Tyler and all the rest of them off...and you guys. I could piss you guys off by correcting your orders." she laughed wildly.

Meredith laughed with her, "No way. You'd be fired in a week."

Burke crossed his arms across his chest, "That would be an astute prediction." he commented dryly, unable to peel his eyes from Cristina.

Cristina's smile faded and she looked at Meredith, "It's time for you to go..." then she tried her best to hide a smile forcing it's way upon her face. "I have to talk to the man I love."

"Doesn't count, Yang." Burke joked dryly with her, knowing exactly where that was heading.

Her hands fell in her lap and she sighed as Meredith stood up from the bed, "So...I guess I'll see you later or something."

Meredith brushed a strand of her stringy locks from her face and nodded, "Yeah...whatever."

"Grey...Meredith..." Burke started, glancing up to Meredith. "You can come back."

"But you haven't even talked to her yet. How do you know if I held up my end of the bargain."

"I know." he assured her softly, his eyes connecting with Cristina's.

He knew what was in her heart.

"Oh...okay. Well, I'll come back...later or something." Meredith nodded, feeling a great deal of relief.

Cristina didn't even nod to indicate that she'd understood Meredith as her eyes had been drawn to Burke's, and a small smile spread across her face.

Meredith stood there for only a moment, to marvel at the two of them, intently taking in each other's presence, exchanging unspoken words.

What they had was real.

What they had was true love.

She thought only for a moment that she may have ruined what they had, put them at a greater jeopardy, but then she stopped and thought for a moment. Maybe what had happened was for the greater good. Maybe she'd pushed them to the next step.

Maybe this is what they needed.

She waited only another moment for Cristina to respond, and finally gave up.

"Oh...um...okay. Bye." Meredith finally mumbled, disappearing from the room.

Burke came to the edge of her bed, and laid his hand against the side of her waist, "So..."

Cristina looked down for a moment, "I'm trying to think of a new specialty. Something at least half way challenging, y'know. I'm too good for vagina's and pimples."

Burke chuckled, "Yeah..."

"So your mom, she made me think." Cristina sighed, running her hand over his. "About things, y'know."

"Did she?" He reached up to brush a strand of hair from her face as he replied quietly.

"Yeah. She said that I needed to realize that I had you or something like that...like you were definitely sticking with me, and I needed to stick back. Except in a more 'I'm Preston's mom and I don't like you' dignified sort of way. And not the stick back that I've been doing, but a little more...y'know. Okay, a lot more."

He couldn't help but chuckle at her comment.

His Cristina was here with him, after he'd yearned for her for so long.

"So, I was thinking. I want to do that. I want to stick back. I really do want to stick back. Even it if it means you domesticate me and all that stuff. I know that I can't be a surgeon, so I can do something else, and I can be home, and we can be all domesticated." She rambled, nervously awaiting some sort of response from him.

Something to indicate that she was forgiven.

There was an overpowering silence between the two of them for what seemed like an hour, only the beep of IV pumps and call-lights breaking it every once in a while.

He studied her quietly, his hands stroking her side, trying desperately to remember the curves that they once knew so well.

She swallowed hard, and slid her hands over his, "Preston."

It was rare that she used his first name.

As a matter of fact, this was only the third time she'd used it; once in front of his mother, the second time when she'd turned down a proposal a year ago.

And now.

"Cardiology." he finally replied, his hands still moving down her side, his body aching for the moment they could go home and rediscover each other.

"Cardiology?" she questioned, her eyebrow raised.

"Your specialty. You could still do some procedures...angiograms and such, still be involved in Cardiothoracics, which is what you want, and you could still practice and it wouldn't be as taxing on your body as surgery would." he explained.

She nodded for a moment, taking in the suggestion, and she felt some sort of relief wash through her, "Cardiology." she repeated.

His eyes studied her expression and he couldn't read her, as she studied her hands lying in her lap.

Finally she raised a hand to the side of his face, "I can do cardiology." she mumbled, her thumb moving softly back and forth against his jaw line.

He was stunned. He didn't expect the fight to be this easy, nor had he expected for her to even listen to his suggestion.

She never stopped amazing him.

He bent down so their lips could meet in a soft kiss, and his hand slowly moved up her side and slid behind her back, sending shivers down both of their spines.

The only broke the kiss when her pulse oximetry monitor went off.

The kisses they shared literally took her breath away.

He gently situated himself on the bed to wrap her up in his arms, and gently kissed her forehead, "For now...we'll focus on getting better, okay?" he mumbled, resting his head against hers.

"I love you." She replied, laying her head against his chest.

"I already said Meredith could come back." he replied jokingly, his eyes settling closed.

"I'm not saying it because of that. I'm saying it because I mean it. And I'm not saying it again, so I hope you heard it the first time."

He smiled inwardly, knowing that they were taking a step in the right direction for change, and pulled a line from her very own vocabulary. "Whatever."

_Living moment to moment isn't easy. It isn't desirable. It commands that we take pause- forget about our plans and focus on what we have. But in those moments that we slow down, and listen to our hearts; Those are the moments that we find ourselves.  
_

A/N: Okay, this is the final chapter of Crash. BUT- There's a multipart companion piece well on it's way already titled Recovery. Yeah, I've been thinking about this for a while. ;) ;) I'll probably put the first chapter or so of Recovery up tomorrow. :) -Jer

THANK YOU FOR READING:)


End file.
